Supermarket. Both tills just opened.
BeniLeft. Her scanner hand is faster.
BetoRight. Move.
Real places, real objects, and two brothers who have been doing this since 1991.
Saturday. Two tills open. Four minutes in it.
Supermarket. Both tills just opened.
BeniLeft. Her scanner hand is faster.
BetoRight. Move.
BeniI timed her on Thursday.
He had. Eleven items, ninety-four seconds, written down.
BetoYours has a chequebook. Look.
She did have a chequebook.
Beto out first. By four minutes.
BetoFour minutes. Familiar number.
BeniThat is not the same thing.
Beni has since added a column for basket contents. Beto has not added anything to anything, and does not intend to.
Beto’s phone battery has been at four per cent since roughly 2016.
Bar Meléndez. Tuesday.
BeniIt has said four per cent for nine years.
BeniEither it is broken or you are.
Volume 41, page nine: a battery graph. Flat.
BetoIt has never once died. Nine years.
It died forty minutes later, mid-sentence.
He wrote the time down instead, which Beto has described, more than once, as significantly worse.
Abuela Pilar’s rule: whoever wins the argument does the washing up. It still technically applies.
Carmen’s kitchen. Sunday. Radio on.
BetoSecond half will be nothing. Nothing at all.
BeniTwo goals. Both after the hour.
Pilar’s rule, still pinned to the cupboard door.
Two goals. Both after the hour.
BetoCongratulations. Sink is yours.
Beni washed up. Beni always washes up.
It has instead produced one brother who is right constantly and one brother with permanently dry hands. Pilar knew exactly what she was doing.