Michael Seidlinger: The Fun We've Had

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.

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.

Fist to frown. Anger without expression.

But only the one time. There would be a repetition but that second punch went straight through. She fell sideways; he might have laughed, but mainly because she expected that he would. Time for laughter elapsed. There was only silence. The silence augmented the muted fit. Fury boiled to the surface in the only way possible.

“Are we having fun?”

Repeated over and over, because it was her turn.

She had become aware of the title of this chapter, the momentum of these pages. She read into the next sentence while he was stuck reading the past.

Just like her to use it against him until the very last moment, when they both would need each other to finally let go.

He said as much as he could ever say, but truth of his turns, and for that matter, hers, the real source of anger and hostility could be found in the fact that what they wanted to say couldn’t be said. What they said existed in different conversations, spoken in a different voice. What they had in mind to speak was overwritten by the lines that left his lips and hers.

What they said had already been said and what they said now and again, fell flat, a conversation held at sea rather than solid ground. But perhaps what is still important is that he spoke.

He still speaks.

Straight faced, these lines tell a different story.

A story that was more like his and hers than could be immediately understood. Characters joined, they were intertwined in the lapsing of holding on. Held on, he could begin to feel that pressure, and with each push, he reacted with anger. Anger directed to the only one there to take it. He took to one side of the coffin, the one that offered the clearest view, the part of the coffin that might have been labeled the bow, where the captain points and plots out a destination. Feet firmly placed, he positioned both hands on his hips. He pushed out his chest. He let out hostile accusations, watching as they immediately fell flat.

“I am faithful to my father.”

[…]

“Now how does that make me feel, to hear that you need to tell me what I should already see?”

[…]

“Confidence!”

Adding exclamation points to every line would be right, but that would also imply that what he said was somehow changed, which could not be remotely true.

Stepping forward, he tempted more of the coffin. This coffin was his. This coffin was his to take.

Thought registered in the heat of this awkward back-and-forth, that she might think that it was his fault.

His fault?It was enough to take a second, big step.

“I lost something back there.”

[…]

“You should have covered that mouth of yours.”

[…]

“Calm down.”

[…]

“It’s just a headache.”

Words without reason are words burned like kindling for the fires of anger. For this: A fight to pass the blame. Neither to be blamed when in fact both are the leading cause, both are burdens on each other. He enabled her as much as she enabled him.

And so they conjured up bad times.

They hurt themselves, and each other.

She said as much as he had said, but who got the last say? For sure he did, but because this was her turn, this time the last will be hers until turned back over to him.

She couldn’t have a turn if he didn’t get one too.

Measure not a single line more because this really has nothing to do with her feelings for him. This was a blameless and needless sort of resentment.

A deep resentment that was there to fill the missing pieces, the halves from this point out forever hidden.

When he stepped forward, it made her step back. Where she now stood, she had no room to step back. Stepping back meant falling into the water. Falling in meant breaking her stare.

That couldn’t happen, not without letting go a little more.

She remained right here. She did not let the blame drown in the calm, warm water. The frigid temperatures must stay inside the coffin. Hurt comes in a dozen shades, all of them having to do with the way she looks at him.