I wanted to kill myself that night. I had everything ready. I had taken enough pills to knock out an elephant. They were my mother’s; they were expired, but I assumed they’d have the same effect on me that they’d had on her. Nothing mattered to me anymore. I was tired of everything. I was tired of living most of all. When you feel that, and there’s no one pulling you back into life, then it’s the end.
Then I got a message from someone I’d almost forgotten, though he used to mean the world to me. He DM’d me on the social media app where I was so popular.
At the time, I was trying to come up with one last story to say goodbye to my fans, one that wouldn’t make them sad, one that would make clear that this had been a personal decision. I wanted to avoid any weird theories or misunderstandings. And just as I was writing my online epitaph, a message notification flashed on my phone like a sign. I could see he wasn’t a regular on that app, because he’d written it in all caps.
GUIDO, THIS IS DR. MARTÍN, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU REMEMBER ME. I HOPE YOU’RE DOING WELL. IF YOU EVER END UP IN MENORCA, COME SEE ME. I’D REALLY LIKE THAT, KIDDO.
At that point in my life, the last person I expected to talk to was Dr. Martín, the man who had saved my life when I was seven years old. And there I was again, nineteen, ready to end it, and he appeared at just the right moment, like magic. Like one of those spirits my mother believed were always accompanying and protecting me.
What could he want? I haven’t been on this planet many years, but still, it’s been enough to learn no one just shows up in your life for no reason. He still called me ‘kiddo’, the way he did with all the kids with cancer. It was nice. It was his way of making us feel better, though at first I thought he did it to keep from having to learn our names. I smiled again when I read that nickname that took me back so far … It had been a long time since I’d been able to make myself happy for no reason. My happiness always depended on my socials, and that was for my followers’ sake, not mine.
I felt a stabbing sensation in my stomach. The pills were taking effect. Either I let them take over my body and destroy it, or I could throw up and hold onto life. I hesitated a few seconds and looked at that ridiculous message as if it were the umbilical cord still binding me to this planet.
Ten minutes later, I was in the bathroom vomiting like mad. It was ironic: I thought of that seven-year-old boy ravaged by the chemotherapy that was saving his life. That might have been the only thing that the boy who no longer existed still had in common with me. Everything else had changed with the friction of life.
Suddenly I could feel my father’s caress. When I was little and the chemo would make me vomit, he used to hold my forehead and say, ‘Guido, duc in altum,’ which means go out into the deep in Latin. He didn’t want me to give up, and I don’t think he believed I would, and even if my life was hard, he knew I would go on rowing out into the waters. I don’t know if talking to a kid in Latin was such a good idea, but so it goes. Calling me Guido was my mom’s idea. She told me it meant ‘he who knows the way.’ That made more sense: I’ve always liked to walk in front of everyone else and find paths others don’t know.
And as an important influencer, I had done that, opening new roads.
They’re both gone now. My father passed after a stupid car crash, but his memory is still with me because my mother called on every good spirit she knew of to take care of me after she was gone. That’s how it is when your mother’s a medium and has the ability to call up ghosts … Unfortunately, she couldn’t come back to me when she left.
I threw up and threw up again, and in between, I typed nimbly on my phone and got a ticket for the next ferry to Menorca. I could feel my father’s hand on my forehead again. He’d be happy, I thought, though I hadn’t actually changed my mind. I’d just put off my departure for a few hours.
There’s always time to go, but just then, I needed to go a little further out into the deep and learn what that doctor who had saved my life wanted. He’d had a complicated life, not an easy one by any means.
My nausea returned as we left Barcelona. My stomach hurt. Some of the pills had made it to my liver and the effects were devastating. On the ferry, lots of young people were looking at me. For them, I was a star. I took a dozen selfies with them but tried to keep my sunglasses on because my eyes were blurry from all the tranquillizers. I wondered how much damage I’d done …
I had struggled to become famous on the internet, but at the time, I hated it. It had given me a lot, but it had taken away my essence. As the years passed, I changed things up, but it was just my appearance, mostly. That was my trademark and it was what got me the most likes. It’s a fact: I was good-looking, and that opened a lot of doors.
I wouldn’t know how to explain what it was I hated so much about my existence. I was bored with life. A kid with cancer who fought like an animal to survive, and who, ten years later, had lost all motivation. Fate was ridiculous like that. I had money enough for two whole lives. I’d stayed in all the luxury hotels, I’d eaten the finest foods, I’d had all the sex and pleasure you could ask for. I wasn’t even twenty yet, and I was tired of everything.
Others wanted what I had — of course they did — but they could never understand my sorrow and depression. They weren’t living my life, and nothing is what it looks like when you’re on top. Sometimes success is really failure because there’s a threshold and once you pass it, nothing has any meaning.
My phone lit up. I’d adjusted my settings so only messages from my doctor would reach me.
I’d lied to him. I’d told him I was planning to be in Menorca for the next few days. I was a good liar. My father only ever asked one thing of me: ‘If you’re a good liar, go ahead and lie to everyone, but not to your mother. You don’t lie to your mother.’ And I did as he said. Everything else got out of hand, but I always told my mother the truth.
HOW NICE THAT YOU’RE TRAVELLING TO MENORCA. I LIVE CLOSE TO CALA’N BOSCH. IT’S A SMALL PLACE WITH SEA VIEWS, NEXT TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. DON’T LOOK FOR A HOTEL, STAY HERE. THANKS FOR COMING TO SEE ME.
I was starting to like his capital letters and his repetitions. He was a simple man, and I adored that. I’d always liked that doctor. He’d stay with us at night in the hospital and talk to us about the treatment we’d be injected with the next day. He was kind and affable, and I think those who believed the doctor’s words got better, and I’m pretty sure I was right; at least it worked with me. I didn’t lose any body parts, the leukaemia just made my blood denser and harsher, or that’s what I always thought.
I never understood why he became an oncologist. It’s the least pleasant specialty. Chemo makes you hate the people who are healing you because the side effects are horrible. And since you can’t see your cancer, your chemo becomes the visible face of your illness — your enemy. It’s stupid, and I guess that’s one of the reasons he cared for us so much and gave us those explanations, talking about cancer as if it were alive, calling us ‘kiddos’. He wanted to keep from looking like the enemy himself.
I knew about his problem, about the accusations against him, which came before I was cured and left the hospital. I never entirely believed what they said about him, but I felt like I wanted to ask him, not as the boy I had been, but from the perspective of the damaged adult I was now. That might have been the only question I really wanted to ask him, but he had disappeared from the hospital, and I think that’s why I vomited up my death — because I wanted to see him. I still had a child’s curiosity, and I owed it to myself to find out. In the end, my name is Guido, and I need to know all the roads and most of the answers.
Duc in altum, the voice of the man who had created me whispered as the waves slapped against the ferry. My father was travelling with me, and so were the other seven spirits my mother had roused to take care of me and occasionally drive me crazy. They didn’t talk much; it was mostly just noises and whispering. Wherever I went, they were with me, like sixteen massaging hands, randomly asking for my attention. Whenever they touched me, I shivered. Sometimes I’d hear just one word; mostly, it was repeated sounds.
In my left pocket, I had what was left of my mother’s pills, the ones she hadn’t taken, nor had I. I wanted so badly to leave … I promise you, nothing had changed, I just needed to go out into the deep a little further, and I would. I wanted to dive into a past I had forgotten before I stepped into an uncertain future.
Back when I was sick, my mother told me I was the boy of steel, and I could do anything, that I wasn’t flesh, that I was hard as a stone, that I had been chosen to survive. And you believe everything your mother says, even when you know it’s not true. I wasn’t made of steel, but I did feel like that for a while.
How sad that I lost all that energy … And on the outside, everyone loved me. My content was amazing; I had millions of views, I’d won influencer prizes, my body and my skin were in a perfect state for loving, for fucking. I may not have been made of steel, but I looked like I was plated in gold, with a face made of porcelain to boot.
I spent the whole trip taking photos with people my age, and with their mothers and fathers who love looking at their socials before bed because they love what the algorithm gives them and they wanted a keepsake. I always thought I was useless as a celebrity, but that everyone loved me because desire gives meaning to the void. Logically, love and care are better than desire, but desire takes up less of your thoughts and causes fewer problems. Or at least that’s what I’ve always believed.
As soon as I got to Menorca, I caught a cab and headed for my doctor’s house. I mean, he wasn’t really my doctor anymore, but for me, he always would be. After all, he saved me from an almost certain death.
The taxi driver didn’t recognize me. I wasn’t on his algo, and I was glad. There’s an entire generation that doesn’t know who I am. In a matter of minutes, I can go from being a celebrity to a stranger, depending on which generation I’m dealing with, and that’s a good thing, even if it drives me crazy. There are days when I’m more or less like my online profile, and that can make things complicated.
I knew Menorca in summertime, but I’d never been there in November. I was fascinated by that green that changed the island up and down. Everything was abandoned, almost like a desert, but that made it more beautiful, as if it needed fewer people and tourists to flourish fully. Less weight to grow, just like many of us.
The taxi driver didn’t speak a word to me. I wanted to take a photo of the countryside and put it online, but that would have made things complicated. A bunch of people would have figured out where I was and shown up to get an autograph or have a real-life conversation. That’s why when I traveled, I always put off posting my photos for seven days. I hadn’t posted anything in a week. I’d wanted my send-off to be the last thing anyone saw.
I could feel my neighbours close to me. I called them ‘my neighbours,’ the girls who had died in my house a long time ago. My mother had woken them and brought them to me. They were crazy, and they moved things around for no reason. They didn’t serve any purpose in my life: they never told me what had happened to them or how they’d died. I never understood why my mother had wanted them near me. They were pretty much useless.
The glovebox opened. The neighbours were fooling around, and now there were papers flying everywhere. The taxi driver flipped out, but he thought it was just that his car was old and the lock was broken. I knew it was the twins. They were playful, and they were always trying to get my attention. They loved driving people crazy, probably because other people drove them crazy … That was my theory, at least, that many people end up in therapy because of other people who ought to go to therapy …
Then, as always, the boy who loved to dance appeared. He would always kick me until someone turned the music on. I’d get real bruises, but if I told people, they just chalked it up to some theory of theirs, usually a venous problem related to my leukaemia. I felt a pain in my shin, and asked the taxi driver to put on an eighties station. That was the kind of music the kid liked, and he started dancing to the beat of Michael Jackson, his favourite singer, who just happened to be on local radio then. I could hear him stomping all around the car, and the taxi driver was starting to get annoyed, hearing steps that didn’t come from my feet, though he must have thought they did.
After forty minutes, we reached the lighthouse my doctor had told me about. The taxi driver was losing it by then, because his turn signal kept coming on, and the click-click-click was enough to make you jump out of your skin. I didn’t say a word about the neighbours or the dancing boy. I never have. No one wants to believe in other lives; they’ve got enough to deal with in their own.
I know you’re interested in what my relationship was like with all the ghosts that surrounded me, but I promise you it’s less exciting than you think. In fact, it couldn’t be more normal.
They’re in their world and I’m in mine. At least for now. In a few hours, perhaps we’ll be in the same place and will recognize each other as equals.