Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

I must have been treated in order to get like this.

Picture: the IV hooked to my veins, the dosage and documentation of how much to take, the gurney, the nurse spoon-feeding me, the neutral white, the sighting of blood bleeding through the dressings.

To get here, I must have gone through a lot.

I am the spotlight and no matter what I do to try to relish in the satisfaction of having reclaimed my title spot, “number one,” the designation registers as meaningless to me. It doesn’t help make any better sense of what I’ve slaughtered. I worked so hard, did so much, to get here.

But am I any clearer of my objective?

My purpose?

Who I am?

What is this supposed to be for?

I DON’T KNOW

Exactly. I am a lapse of everything but what the TV tells me.

There are sit-coms telling me to laugh and surely there are news channels telling me all about my accolades. They call me a fighter, a real pugilist celebrity.

Sure enough I am, to them, but for how long?

How ironic to discover that the achievement is nowhere near as satisfying as the fight to get there.

I try to remember what it felt like when I was younger, achieving so much at such a young age, and remaining undefeated for such a long time; however, where there should be reason I am left with basic facts.

I won.

And my fight record.

League stats.

I always focused on what I hadn’t achieved rather than what I managed to become. Especially now, where everything is consistently muted and disengaged from the actual circumstances, I am essentially living more in my head than out in the open. I switch the channels but nothing registers as anything more than a set of images, colors, and criticism.

They favor me, but what does that even mean?

Tomorrow it’ll be different.

Tomorrow might be like yesterday—

Full of uncertainty and the discussion of a follow-up fight where I am the potential underdog (he’s old — he’s not what he used to be) and every lie, every single time I shilled to become significant, will have gone to waste.

I DON’T KNOW

It’s true. I don’t know what’s happened and I don’t know what’ll happen. I don’t want to look back at them because I know the number will have dwindled at least by two.

What will they do?

I DON’T KNOW

What will I do besides watch TV?

Isn’t that enough? After you are in a fight where you are beaten into a bloody pulp, watching TV is the perfect answer to “what do you do?”

I switch from a soap opera to a talk show.

“On how they got a second chance.”

Tell me about the world, TV.

Tell me why I’m watching you.

The host brings a bunch of celebrities past their prime onto the stage. Together they televise the basic message that has existed as an unsung law of sorts in our culture.

An identity is like a person in that it has to continually change and evolve to stay alive. One step further—

A person is an identity.

When hasn’t this been the case?

Much like a roundtable discussion, they tip-toe around the basics and they barely get their point across to the audience before they have to cut to a commercial break. Tantamount to a knockout, a commercial break is suicide to the momentum of a debate.

When they return, they talk more about themselves. They use the opportunity to be on camera as a means of promoting their next projects.

As I watch, I see the celebrities not as different identities but as different versions of myself, talking feverishly about their relevancy.

Prove to the world that you matter.

I switch channels.

Watch the world go by with a single step up from twelve to thirteen on the dial.

I cough and I can feel the house cough with me, trembling at the foundation. I close my eyes and feel the resonating pull into the grey that the medication makes me feel.

I reopen my eyes and I feel like I’ve lost something else.

What was it like to win the title?

I DON’T KNOW

Back to the TV, the window into the outside world, and it’s already reached middle age. If I had my phone, I would have favored that window over this one. I can barely move; my arms feel heavy. My legs…I’m not even going to try to walk at this point. Someone sat me here in front of the TV.

This is where I will continue to sit.

What happened to…

I DON’T KNOW

I forgot what I was about to ask.

What am I trying to say?

I DON’T KNOW

This is the kind of confusion that I am not used to. It’s not a waking confusion; it is the kind of confusion that renders my memory useless. At least before, I wouldn’t know until a few triggers recovered the item from the so-called archive of my battle-tired brain.

However, so numbed out by the medication, I am barely alive.

I am barely alive at a time when I could be considered someone that is the most alive. At this very moment, my worth is skyrocketing and I can do nothing to care.

Why?

I DON’T KNOW

That is good enough of a reason.

I will not be able to enjoy my achievement.

Never have, never will.

And I could worry about what they will do to reclaim some of the spotlight. I might wonder about Executioner and Lights Out and Buster and Ice and…and…and…and…and…and…

But not Black Mamba; he is as bad off as I am, trading comments, sharing the same internal monologue that lately sounds more like a machine than a human voice.

Change the channel.

Change the channel.

Change the channel.

Change the channel.

QUIET!

I hear it droning on and on and it gets to a point where I am on the verge of being irritated before a distraction, as if on cue, pulls me out of the definite haze.

I hear footsteps upstairs.

Right on cue.

I look over at them.

Three more gone. That leaves fourteen.

I struggle to my feet. It’s a lot like watching a zombified version of your body from over one of your shoulders. It’s like I’m holding the game controller and I am directing my next move with every press of the button.

I shuffle my way to their side of the basement.

I tear the tape off X’s mouth.

I lean in close and it takes me a long time to finally say what I want to say, “Did…did…you hear …something?”

X’s tired eyes, his sunken skin, his horrible deathly breath as he says:

“You…”

I want to ask him what he means but that’ll take too much energy.

I’m lucky enough to have asked him anything.

And besides, X’s eyes roll back in his skull, collapsing against the harness, hanging there, circling the drain of death.

The fourteen that remain, they are young but ill.

They are versions of me that remain only because I’ve moved on. I have outlived their goals, their lives made, met, and finally matriculated to the point of losing momentum. My way of saying they would have followed in my footsteps, not wanting to change anything.

The ones that escape me are the ones that think they can do better.

Haven’t I done well enough for myself?

I DON’T KNOW

Each stair is excruciating when your knees buckle and your body does not want to cooperate.

The sounds coming from upstairs, just above me, are all that keeps me going. The footsteps sound like mine. Somewhere in this house, I will recover a few basic facts about myself. Namely, I will figure out why they escape and why I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself at the same time that I should feel like I am complete, a champion, a celebrity.

I should find out how it all ends because everything comes to an end if it’s anything of value. That’s why I cling to my brand.

Willem Floures lives on forever.

But what about me?

It’s selfish, I know.