After the end

‘And that’s a wrap!’

The last quiet, half-sad little laughs still echoed in my head, even though the day was over and everyone went home. There were no "see you Monday"s, there won't be another Monday. The show is over. It lived for ten years and now it's dead. The actors stripped their characters like old clothes at the end of the day. The crew congratulated one another. The showrunner, the big man took out everyone to celebrate and remember. The fake apartments, fake coffee shops and bars and streets are empty now, demoted from being our home to settings. The show was over,

That's not entirely true, though. Not yet. We are still here. We, the characters, who only ever knew the written life in the fake city, we are still here. After all the “will they, won't they”, all the silly little jokes, all the nice, uplifting moments and life lessons, we are still here, haunting the empty studio, like ghosts of people who have never even been born.

Have you ever wondered what happened to your favourite character after the show was over? We don't die, because we never lived. We are thoughts, ideas, memories. We started as cardboard cut-outs of real people, then, over the years (seasons) we became almost real. Then it was over, the studio said no more, the story had to end, and here we are, imaginary ghosts in a make-believe world.

I was the nerdy one. Not the nerdy one who will get the beautiful main girl at the end, I was the other one. The friend, the support character who will find a suitable love interest along the way, when the jokes of him being single and unloveable became boring. Still earlier than the main character, so his wedding can be a big season finale. Everyone is happy, because everyone thought that this sarcastic weirdo will die alone. Now that he has a wife, he grew into the role of a family man and nobody cares about him anymore, even though the character from the first season would clearly never settle down to have an average life. He was, I was, a dreamer, an artist, and a bit of an asshole, but in a funny way.

You can call it character development. I think the big man just didn't have a better storyline to give me. It's okay, it's over anyway. And the audience loved me 'till the end, so it's all worked out for the best.

I wonder if they will remember us. Quote our jokes? Watch us over and over again? Writing articles about how the main character wasn't even the main character, how I should have ended up the main girl, how we were all just the dream of that one old, grumpy neighbour?

You know, I loved her. The female lead, not the grumpy neighbour, I mean. My character was written that way, it was inevitable. It was my secret drama to watch her end up with someone else. With my best friend. She was perfect for me, dorky, funny, smart, strong… But that's not what the viewers wanted to see.

It's okay. It's over anyway.

What's next for us? The main couple will get married. They had their big moment, racing to the airport, spontaneous proposal in the pouring rain; they were all set. They will have kids and fights and I have no doubt they will be amazing and funny. They might even get a spin-off show at some point. The setup is right, the big man broke the group of friends up, had some of them move someplace else, somewhere that wasn't here, so we can all be sad about how everything ends, eventually. No more fun nights at the bar, no more coffee breaks. Will we be parts of each other's life? The last episode suggested that we would because friendships never end in the make-believe world. We will have our own family to look after but we will still spend every major holiday together. There are no divorces and estranged friends in the make-believe world, not after the end. After the end, everyone lives happily ever after. All dreams come true. Because that’s what the audience wants.

I wonder how it works in real life.