Santiago

Santiago is the first installment of "Pink Days," an autofiction podcast.

A series of atmospheric vignettes, Santiago, is roughly based on my last years in Chile. It's about longing and someone I've named Sebastián. Or perhaps more so, my love for music & poetry.

I highly recommend that you listen with headphones on & eyes closed.

part 1:

It's the year 2001. The protagonist and Sebastián meet at Cementerio General in Santiago de Chile.

Transcript:

It was 2001.

Sebastián was waiting for me at the cemetery. He had his portable radio, and I grabbed Radiohead’s Amnesiac.

We were not goth kids. We just liked quiet places where we could speak softly.

We walked until we stood before the headstones of people who died in the first half of the 20th Century. We wanted the long-gone folks in Cementerio General to hear what music sounded like today.

[music mix]

We did this every time one of our favorite bands dropped an album.

I fast-forwarded until “You and Whose Army?” came on.

Thom Yorke sang in his distant, wounded croon: “We ride tonight/ ghost horses.”

But my English was rusty, and I heard: “You ought to know/ I’m so sad.”

When "I Might Be Wrong” broke loose, I couldn’t resist. I broke into a shimmy.

'Do you think it’s disrespectful?'

'No… Not if I were the muerto,' Sebastián noted.

I told him I wished someone would spill music on my tomb, that I didn’t want to miss out on new jams just because I was dead.

And I was hoping he’d say: 'I’ll make sure there’s always music on your grave.' But he just rolled a cigarette and smiled.

[rain]

We took refuge inside some rich asshole’s mausoleum.

Sebastián drew faces in the mold with his fingertips.

I was wearing a second-hand green velvet dress. He asked if he could feel its texture. 'Mm-hmm.' He ran his fingers up and down my waist as I held my breath. I was relieved when he stopped.

The rain was too gentle to choke

the rattled murmur in my chest.

'You’re shaking.'

'Yeah,' I conceded. Prozac kept my head above water, but it made my hands shake and my jaw quiver.

'I’m a little cold.'

Pt 2:

A poetry reading and a description of Sebastián's fiancée, Dani.

Featuring:

"Sunlit Rooms" by Ryan Fiegl.
"Estamos aquí" by Maria Perlita.

Transcript:

I met Sebastián during my freshman year at a poetry reading. I was new to the city - back then, but not to the weirdos who go to these things.

[Poetry reading clip]

'Yo escribía silencios, noches (…) Fijaba vértigos'

We had both underlined that quote from Rimbaud. I anchored vertigo.

The following month he got a tattoo of dreamy-eyed Arthur.

Then the emails began.

*

Dani was Sebastián’s fiancée. She was short and tubby. She had big blue eyes and gave zero fucks.

She had an impossibly upturned nose with wide nostrils and drew self-portraits that underscored her likeness to Miss Piggy. I thought they were kind of brilliant.

When my parents returned from Ecuador, they gave me Oswaldo Guayasamín knockoffs that they thought I’d like. But the people in the paintings had their big nostrils filled with blue, and they reminded me of Dani.

I piled them in the alley.

Pt 3:

Email exchanges in 2004 and a quote from Pedro Páramo.

Transcript:

It was 2004, and it dawned on me that Sebastián and I never shared personal details. I didn't know much about him.

After an unusual silence, I saw one of his emails:

'I forgot to hit send because I wrote to you in my mind.'

I replied with my most daring, an excerpt from Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo, a Mexican novel from 1955. Pedro: the ruthless cacique, the hoarder of land, guns, and women, who never outgrew his love of Susana. The crazy one. The one who bore no children.

Miraba care las gotas iluminadas por los relámpagos, y cada vez que

respiraba, suspiraba, y cada vez que pensaba, pensaba en ti, Susana.

Every time I breathed, I sighed, and every time I thought, I thought of you, Susana.

'Isn't that corny?' I asked.

Pt 4:

A last-minute rendezvous by Santiago's Mapocho.

Transcript:

The wedding was rescheduled for April 15, 2005, and Sebastián asked if we could grab a drink the night before.

I didn’t have the guts to say no.

And it was my favorite time of year in Santiago: The Fall.

We sat on a bench overlooking Mapocho, the river where the handcuffed corpses of men and women deemed enemies of the state once ballooned as a warning. We shared a paper cone of french fries & mustard.

Sebastián, in his deadpan tone:

'If someone were to watch us, they might say:

‘they’re lovers, but they don’t know it yet.'

Santiago

TK...