Meh

Pretending not to care about things is one of my strengths. It's a talent I was born with, a gift I should be thankful for, but who cares. I would compare myself with those kids who are composing music at 6 or becoming chess grandmasters at 13, but what would be the point.

When I was 9 my father realised the potential I had and encouraged me to sign up for the regional championship of pretending not to care, or Mehing, as they ended up calling this discipline. When he told me that the first prize consisted of a Game Boy my eyes quivered for a fraction of a second but I managed to suppress any additional caring signal and agreed to participate, making explicit that the prize was completely irrelevant to me. I won the Regionals effortlessly to the astonishment of the Mehing community, which hadn't seen an unknown talent rise to the top and win with such resolution on their first appearance since Mikhail, a Soviet prodigy, had accomplished a similar feat in 1949.

The next step was the Nationals, which I also managed to win, although this time on a technicality. I had finished the tournament in second place but was lifted to first place when the crowned champion was disqualified on the grounds of "excessive celebration", including a "genuine smile" and "hugs with his family", according to the official report. The scandalous smile of a national Mehing champion captured the cover of every related publication, from Mehing Magazine to Don't Care/Don't Care.

After winning the Nationals my family hired Mikhail, the Soviet prodigy, not Soviet nor a prodigy anymore, to prepare me for the Europeans. Mikhail would make me watch sad movies and I would not cry; he would tell me funny jokes and I would not laugh. One day in the middle of practice he answered the phone and after listening for a minute and getting visibly overwhelmed he grabbed me aside and announced that my parents had had a car accident and had died on the spot. I said "well, that's how it goes, isn't it?" Immediately my parents came in from the adjacent room and revealed that the car accident was a common story that the Soviets used to employ as a final lesson, the ultimate test for a Mehing professional. I said "a-ha".

I went to the Europeans and managed to win round after round. The day of the finals I was already on stage ready not to care while my opponent, another 9 year old from Finland named Taru, was nowhere to be found. Forty-five minutes after the finals should have started one of the judges stormed in explaining that he had just talked to Taru and that she had confessed that the alarm clock had gone off, but that today she wasn't in the mood for a European final of Mehing and had gone back to sleep. The judges were so impressed by her apathy that rewarded her with the European Championship. I tried to protest but that only made me look like I cared and helped them cement their decision.

That's the story of how I got silver medal on the European Mehing Championship back in 1992. I could have won the gold medal but I don't care. I don't care that today 26 years ago I got outsmarted, outplayed and outbored by a 9 year old Finnish girl named Taru.

Taru...

June 2018. A couch with a broken cover, Sant Just Desvern.