The Fun We've Had (4 page)

He couldn’t remember.

He couldn’t remember his name.

Perhaps he could remember if he tried to give a little bit more about himself but by all accounts it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to give much more if the name is as hopeless as the words he cannot help but speak.

This body of his, it looked so familiar.

“I know you.”

Three words dripped down those red lips, lips that should have never been his. Not with the kind of mouth he had, known to sprinkle language better left unsaid. Everything he said never really stained his white teeth, but a younger, more innocent body like this might turn into a monster based on his tendency to break free and tempt disaster. It’s why he got along so well with her.

Tempting a disease, it grabbed him as much as it grabbed her. Doubt is quite similar to denial as long as he desired something other than this. But enough about desire.

Desire is what got him here. Desire is what got her to dare in the first place. Enough about that.

For this to work, he needed to be aware. For this to really work, he needed to lower his face near the water and stare at what stared back at him. Various faces, gestures formed in hopes of turning that face into a frown. For this to work, he needed to feel empty. No matter what face he made, what looked back at him failed to look how he wanted it to look.

Mouth open, jaw hanging, he watched as a grin formed.

What was there to smile about?

By the look of the borrowed body, he was a girl, a life as-of-yet to design, a life already in decline.

HER TURN

She yawned and it was a yawn that shook free the very fact that, broken neck or not, she could move this body beyond any clear reason. She could crack the spine in five places. Bend an arm back in the wrong direction. She turned her neck one hundred and eighty degrees, stopping only when she saw him.

He could be found on the other side of the coffin, head hanging over the edge, dipped in as if drowning were still a probable means of demise.

Demise had passed them.

Past demise there is no clear direction, not if you are here, and hold on to what cannot be rightfully named.

At least not right now, though it might be obvious, in the grander scene, the scenario in its entirety, what must happen to see anything distinct on the horizon, to reach landfall.

So she was a middle-aged man.

So what?

Wishing it could have been that easy to dismiss.

Yet when she really looked at him, she saw past the young girl staring back with that grin across her face, with the opposite of what he must have felt; she saw through the borrowed body and it was enough for her to sit up, move her own borrowed body in a way that it hadn’t been moved in some time.

She sat forward, elbows on knees, and coughed. Or at least tried to cough.

The not coughing got his attention. She watched as he skipped toward her, tilting the entire coffin, nearly flipping it over. Maybe he wanted to breathe out, exhale, emphasizing that he was relieved, but instead jaw hung heavy when the breath did not come. Since he tried, her try couldn’t end in any other way than what she had witnessed.

She held her belly like a newborn child. Cradling it dearly, she looked around as he closed his eyes, hopeful and youthful despite what little could be seen.

He sat and she sat because what else could they do but sit side-by-side and stare out toward the ocean turning colors, red, green, orange, than black, before returning to blue? All colors in the spectrum but the one color they liked best. The one they would never admit, which is why they sit and why they continued to sit as day turned into night, night back into day, with the sun never lowering, not even once.

She pretended that she could still breathe; they both imagined that their hearts still beat.

Lips might have met each other if they could have correctly measured the distance between them; instead they kissed air, clumsily looking beyond their bodies, wanting to say everything yet couldn’t because they failed to ascertain what “everything” entailed.

Squinting, she hoped that seeing halfway would do what it had done before. Now that she needed to see half, it worked against her, forcing her to see in full.

“I said hello but it seems we never really met.”

A voice carried by the waves.

It didn’t take much to pretend that the gruff voice was his. But for that to work, there should have been a breeze. Instead there was nothing but low-hanging humidity, dread in layers made to keep her attuned to the conditions. Gripping her belly, she had trouble admitting that they looked like strangers.

She was supposed to feel something.

She was supposed to see him rather than seeing
her
, blue eyes and skin like porcelain.

Not beyond but underneath.

But she couldn’t. 

He felt the same way about her, seeing
him
, belly, ugly visage, bags under the eyes.

This is the stuff that characters don’t get to see until enough lines have been laid out across the page. Characters are treated horribly when the narrative needs to be long enough to explore an ocean rather than a pond, a horizon rather than one shore. They sail the same sea. By wit’s end they grip with everything that occupies this coffin, be it themselves or something else.

You can’t just admit what doesn’t hurt. After admission, no believable character reverts to denial.

HIS TURN

He could nearly remember the name. It was a name that fit the living but, for the dead, it looked out of place on a headstone. He sat holding onto the mimicry of deep thought, various threads looming from above. He knew he had to let go of his name if he wanted to keep himself from drowning. Sunlight bathed the coffin once, but now it excused itself from the scene so that he would have no excuse to keep his eyes closed. Those blue eyes were cautiously vacant, staring straight ahead, never more sure of the uncertainty in this tale. Every line cut short and hidden like the would-be wrinkles on the face of this foreign body.

But that part doesn’t yet matter. The part about looming pertained to the circumstances that have already passed both of them over, much like long-lost siblings might never recognize that they were switched at birth. It looms, the reality of the situation, no matter how unreal, no matter how obscure, no matter how masked it is due to the manner in which this is told.

Beyond any sense, it will be told. 

Having sat where he normally would stand, he leaned forward when it felt wrong to lean back; he leaned back when it felt wrong to lean forward. He inched himself closer to the edge when it felt wrong to be so laid back. He turned to one side, went as far as laying prone, testing the size of the coffin, when sitting had outstayed its welcome.

Laying there it was almost like he was alone, riding the ocean’s waves, being rocked toward the final sleep.

Laying there, he might have misplaced the curiosity to look back whenever he knew she was staring at him.

He wanted her to stare, and it wasn’t a malicious stare; she looked at him because what else did either of them have but each other? 

Sharing the same space where it felt wrong to be taking up any space at all rendered him in a very anxious state.

Maybe he should stand back up.

Maybe he should go back to sitting.

Maybe he should swim…

What he felt, and failed to name, was what ceaselessly wrapped around the living, the stuff of life. 

Put into perspective, it could be called anxiety.

He knew that something was wrong and it had everything to do with what could not fit correctly in both coffin and mind.

This wasn’t him, so pale and thin.

Pieces missing yet understood, he could finally stop paddling. They were going nowhere. The coffin floated in place. The waves rocked it back and forth, pushing it forward enough to make up for how much they pushed it back. The motion of the ocean spun his thoughts into one blank episode, one on repeat until admitting what he needed to admit.

It would take much longer to understand the whole of his postmarked demise. Visible: he saw, for once, what had already been seen, and because it felt so familiar, there was nothing else to do but blame her.

She would be waiting, ready to reciprocate.

HER TURN

The name might have been hers to choose. Given a list with names, she may have been the one outlier. But then, it failed to fit. Much like how he had doubled over in unfathomable anxiety, she held on, letting the omitted memories leave.

Everything within touch triggered the name. She knew her name and yet could not say it. This borrowed body had no reason to say the name. It hadn’t been his.

No doubting that it was her name. In life she went by the name and, floating idly, she held onto the name like an anchor that took one whole section of this story to discover.

In order for this to work, there needed to be something out there, or at least the thought that there might be.

She needed to keep herself occupied and able.

She needed to start watching him like he was onto something and held back, keeping something from her.

Everything she cannot name.

There is a discovery that she might have made right from the beginning but he was her distraction.

This was the excuse that began circling her like a shark, each time quicker and hungrier than the last.

Impatient until she was ready to lash out.

Perfectly ready but the words would not come.

Dry mouth and bitter hate growing.

She ground her teeth shut, filing them down as if they were made of wood. The focus here was not on what the bodies become because, really, they have become all that they could become. Much like a sculpture finalized, nothing else could be added, only taken away. The focus here was on how both share the same feelings. They have always shared the same feelings. Denial, now a sunken feeling, they both reacted to newly recovered worries. 

For once, they used their senses to interpret. And it was anger. There would be no surprise to find that she did not like what she saw. Fault held strong. It was
not
her fault.

She fixated on what had been taken away from her.

By him.

The way he lay there taking up too much space. The way he seemed to take this all in stride. The way he seemed to know where he was going while she did not. He took from her and he keeps taking from her. The dirtiest flicker of a thought rose from the depths of the sea entered her left ear and stayed, never exiting out the other. Why did she carry the weight of a poor and miserable man’s girth?

She was not yet aware that the blame fit the excuse and the fault was her burden to carry. Well-known for most would be, for her, an obscure reference.

Her excuses fell flat when she couldn’t match the grimace, speaking lines that could not have been dialogue. 

Something needed to move.

He did all the moving. It was her turn to move. Again, the blame. Fault. She continued to sit.

The waves slowed and soon it was still water on all sides of the coffin. The sky was grey, devoid of choice. The solitary sound was of him tapping fingers against the wooden surface. She reacted by creating a second sound, sweaty palm slapped against her face. He noticed and since it couldn’t show, she used this body to express his copy.