Michael Seidlinger: The Fun We've Had

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.

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.

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.