Michael Seidlinger - The Fun We've Had

He no longer sat at the so-called front, the “bow,” of the coffin, their buoy, their boat. He shared the entire coffin with her. He carefully moved in circles, and she fell into the same routine, circling the coffin so that it never tipped over, never became docile or prone to further damage.

The water that continued to fill seemed to slow its ascent if they remained mobile. How they discovered this to be true is unclear; however, he took to bigger steps. It was his way. He couldn’t deny the fact that he made sure to be quicker, more mobile than she, and it might be the one reason why he did not trade the rest of her body for his. At least not yet. He enjoyed sampling a more youthful, nimbler, body.

His face hung there like dry and dead skin; every couple circles he would catch a glimpse of himself on the water and it would catch him off guard. It made him feel something he could not express. No matter how many words he saved for the horizon, it was something unnamable.

It was guilt. It had to be guilt. For this to be a romance, he could never be pardoned from the guilt of feeling as though he could have saved her. From what exactly, it wasn’t defined until this very chapter. He cared enough in life to still feel, in death, that he might have saved her life.

Fault would be the anchor that pulled him under.

Encircling the coffin, she greeted them over and over, once a rotation, and the rotations never ceased. She walked, seldom sat, as if she were walking his body, giving it some exercise.

“I love you,” every time, every single time, she saw him.

And never was it in question.

It was not an empty statement.

There was a momentum that continued to anchor them, continuing to fill the coffin, and yet the splashing of that water never seemed to worry her. She felt as though she were entitled of his worry. It was his responsibility to save the two of them.

So instead she played a different part.

It was difficult enough to cater to them. She was hardly ever the socialite but they chose to visit her again here, of all places, and really though, now was the perfect time for these sorts of visitors. The ghosts that visited her had become social acquaintances, neighbors out at sea.

Their speech had no reason to sit between quotation marks.

They spoke in thought and it didn’t seem like he could eavesdrop. Only she could see their words on the air, fading so casually, like comic strip speech bubbles without the ink.

You seem well.

Why thank you. Where’s your coffin?

It’s over there. You just can’t see it.

Still getting used to that selective sight thing.

You never get used to it.

I see… but you’re holding on well, right?

I am, I am.

We all are.

That’s worth toasting to. Where’s your water?

Right here.

Well, let’s toast to it.

Here, here!

It was really worth the sip of saltwater. Coughing, it was her turn. “I love you,” and both him and her seemingly fell back into their own minds, their own routines.

How are you holding up?

Good… she was confident in that even though she aimed to sound extremely confident so that they would judge her favorably.

That’s good. But you have to tend to him as much as you tend to yourself.

I’d say it’s the opposite — easy to tend to him, harder to tend to yourself.

They were all in agreement. And she nodded too.

I will hold on for as long as I have to. Again, really confident so as to be extremely clear.

No end in sight, pointing to the quiet one and said, lost the mouth in the last storm.

Storm?

Different every time.

Correction: Different for everyone.

No need to explain because she simply knew all of a sudden. It was the harsh truth that the dead share. Drank the rainwater. Didn’t even really want to but thirst rose up like a fire from within. Always a fire. And at that moment, right after swallowing, the mouth disappeared. But then, she believed that she’d be careful.

They pointed to her face, how it sagged.

You can be so sure…

It bothered her, but she held up; she needed them to believe that she would be holding on for good.

He said, “I love you.” She recognized that it would soon, once again, be her turn to be his savior.

She was responsible for herself and, because of it, she had to be there to save him as much as he would most definitely be there to save them both.

A person would do anything to hold on if it meant never being lonely. He matched up the words until what he saw on the horizon was a perfect measurement in description of the kind of shoreline he desired to see in the distance.

Beaches.

A beacon, a lighthouse light directing the coffin to safe shores.

In this night, the moon finally there, MOONLIGHT, something he had missed the most, if one could really miss anything now.

A skyscraper.

Another skyscraper.

A series of smaller but visible buildings lining the area between skyscrapers.

SOUND and another SOUND.

It didn’t matter what those sounds were as long as they were sounds, something indicative of society.

He crafted the city landscape from out at sea. He could almost taste the smell of fried dough, the kind you could smell in heavy clouds when walking the boardwalk of any popular beach.

He wanted to sense something even if it meant tasting what was normally smelled, smelling what was normally tasted.

Most of all, he wanted to hold on.

He bargained for this to be where they would be.

Here, between any real place, the nonexistence, the area inside walls. Whatever it might be called, he leaned toward never letting go. Now that would seem impossible, sure.

And it would be, but don’t let the hopeless-suddenly-hopeful ghost kill a romance before the romance really started.

He again turned toward her and held back. Before there could be any concern, he touched her lips to his. They kissed and in that single sign of affection, he handed her everything he saw.

When they touched lips again, it wasn’t a kiss. They held lips, suctioned them tightly around both mouths, and waited until tongues touched. Waited some more until the tongues began to move, switching places. Tongues so tight he could hear the voice returning to him, the gruff and often growling voice climbing back into his throat, and her cheery voice leaving.

But that couldn’t be it. It wasn’t enough.

In order to hold on, he needed more than just his hands, and she needed more than just her face. They needed to return everything they had borrowed. They needed to be themselves.

He opened his mouth to speak, and told her.

It was no longer merely talk of the mind. It was talk.

It was telling.

With the borrowed now having fully become hers, they brought themselves close and mended all that needed mending. First they turned to the coffin, recognizing that their pairing must have been on purpose, meant to be, because there was only the one coffin.

The coffin shook as she spoke in her own voice, the words that do not matter much for this tale, outside of this manic moment, so they will not show up here.

The quick and plain decision was that as long as they weren’t alone, they decided to hold on, and holding on involved caulking the coffin, not letting the invisible water sink them.

She cut her arm, but only after telling him that she would.

He nodded and did the same. Cut arms, they brought color to the once-invisible water. They used their hands for good, cupping the water and splashing it overboard. Did this for quite some time until the water lowered.