Michael Seidlinger - The Fun We've Had

She gestured with each line, knowing that words would fail her. He took steps but she took him back to dark times. Picture the lightless night in a cramped space. Picture words written all across the walls, maybe words like the ones that left her mouth now.

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“Oh your dad…”

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“My dad, what?”

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Raw, like wreaking havoc on his memory, she gestured for sleep. She drew the shape of blankets and pillows, and then of hands around her neck, pulled tightly.

Then she spoke, shouting out the first word, much like he did with his own lines, only to have it all fall back down to the flat monotone muttered in her gruff, frank voice.

“None of your business.”

But the flatness let it pass as he took that second step forward. Lost language as she had begun to feel the same way he felt: Overcome with this heated, murderous need to make something change in the other, something bad. New scars.

New lines of distention, something.

Something…

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“This isn’t yours.”

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“This is my house.”

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“You don’t pay for anything.”

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No — she simply could not let him take a third step.

She couldn’t taste the saltwater. She refused to drown, feeling like she had already drowned.

Maybe failed at that too.

When she looked beyond him, she felt calm, like this might all be washed away with a simple rainstorm. She would be washed out, blurred by the storm. For that to happen, she would have to let go of what she felt, and she simply couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work, not when everything that had been written before this line defined her character as resentful and capable of holding grudges.

No. Simply no.

That’s how she would leave things. Scissors cutting the cord, letting it all drown.

All of it.

No.

Stepping back, he was too late. He had already overstepped. Two steps too many. She lashed out with lines that read more like:

FIRST WORD.

Enough to remind him of her distaste, her complete loathing for him, followed by a trail of the rest of whatever she said acting well to make it sting.

What exactly stung wasn’t worth talking about. Rather, it was how she continued to define things, those places, which seemed so wrong. For that reason, he saw himself there, in the wrong.

She put him in this situation, the feeling that it really was his fault, and he could feel the anger subside as she lashed out at him with line after line, spoken statements like triggers of the self, wilting.

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He saw in himself what he saw on her surface.

What you are:

Overweight.

Half a life over, a life over from the start.

Crackpot. Desperate for legacy but destined to be forgotten.

Insomnia-driven caffeine addiction.

Poor hygiene led to poorness in a number of respects, mainly that of poor finances and poor looks.

Look at you, look at that.

He tripped and fell as she delivered one more line.

[…]

Looking beyond her he felt calm, as if he could still let go of all the wrong, all the bad that he had done. Demise buried it all, though. It buries everything. For the wrong to be wiped clean, the good times would need to be washed out as well.

He sat inside himself, sat inside his sitting, balled up and retreated inward.

She had wanted the worst in him to surface. She didn’t know what she wanted, but it’s practically identical to how they once were, which is to say that she hadn’t a clue from the start. It was always about just starting, never finishing, going and letting it go whenever she lost interest, hoping it wouldn’t return.

But he returned. And returned.

He returned every one of her lines with one of his. It wasn’t even what he said anymore but rather that he had forced her into a corner. This allowed for the anger to completely boil over. The result is what can be seen as one lashing out at the other.

As she breathed nonexistent breath, she spoke in rapid succession, each line beginning with a sharpened blade and ending dull. She pushed forward as she spoke. The coffin weighed in one-sided, causing one side to rise and the other to sink.

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“Whatever.”

“No! Not ‘whatever.’ You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I just did.”

“Are we having fun, huh?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Watch where you’re fucking going!”

“You should feel bad.”

“Well I don’t.”

“Without me you’ll drown.”

“You’ll drown too, bitch.”

“What is happening to you?”

Coffin at tipping point, she jumped up and down, the extra weight causing water to pour in.

She enjoyed it, what she saw, the losing end of this, his face in a state of worry. But if she wanted to make sure, she couldn’t stop now. She jumped a second time. More water poured in but she watched a different source, tears from his face, from that stupid young face of his, the one that made her resent him more. The reason, she already had it in mind, but she would have to let go a little more to see herself, really see that the only thing she hated was how she looked. She had always hated how she looked. Too thin, too childish. How old are you really?

People were always mistaking her age.

There, see how a single flicker of memory is all it takes to send her over the edge. One more line spoken:

“I’m falling in ‘love.’ Whatever.”

He could be seen curling up, bringing knees up toward his chest. For one brief moment, she would almost enjoy the satisfaction. Almost because, floating here, she couldn’t be anything more than half.

Half of a feeling, half of a thought, half of herself.

For this one brief moment, she believed she was not responsible for the strangeness of this tale.

“You are weaker.” A line, a leash, a tether tending to him before he sank. Before he gulped up the water pooled in the coffin. After he grabbed and held on, he could quickly see that everything wasn’t wrong. When he looked at her, he was forced to look at himself. Beyond all the blemishes, he could identify the good. He could see that his eyes weren’t dull, behind swollen cheeks was a brilliant mind. He sat inward and was able to see that all the good he had experienced, everything he had given and in turn given back hid inside rather than broadcast plainly on the surface.

Since he had been given very little to work with, for his sake and for the sake of her, the anger returned. The anger bled and bade for his best attempt. Pathetic, but it had to be pathetic. This was not for him. The anger was for her, because she needed him to be angry. At this precise moment, she needed him to bend down and be like a dog, lapping up the water she had brought on.

Burp out lines, each given plain, the anger saved for the last word rather than the first, between mouthfuls of the water.

“I’m the one with the license.”

“I feel perfectly fine. In fact, breathe in this air. I have never felt better!”

“You haven’t proven anything!”

“Look at those eyes.”

“Not at all like what you might imagine; just because you don’t see it does not mean it does not see you.”

“Look.”

“I am looking.”

“Your eyes have gone grey.”

“Blink, why don’t you blink?”

“There can be no turning back now.”

“You need to look.”