Michael Seidlinger - The Fun We've Had

The rest is what cannot be washed away by the waves, at least not until she finally and fully lets go.

She couldn’t bear it, seeing herself whenever she wanted to look to him. And she couldn’t speak to him, so she shoved those borrowed hands into the cool water.

Fell against one side, still not yet used to the weight of this body, and felt the coffin rock back and forth.

She wanted to get sick. She wanted to throw up so much that perhaps she could escape out of this body. There was the thought that letting go was easier, but when she tried, her eyes wandered back to where he sat, also looking over the edge of the coffin, into the water, and she felt nothing.

Because she felt nothing, she stared into the water.

She made ripples in the water by moving those heavy, bloated hands. After the water stilled, she was surprised to see him staring back at her. She opened her mouth to speak, “You should be well by now.” So out of place, it seemingly ruined the moment, so she once again spoke, “Maybe it’s cancer.”

She recognized what she had said but could not yet place where it had come from, and why the word “cancer” seemingly pulled her face forward into the water, an inch from being submerged. Impossible to just say what she wanted to say.

“That’s not true.” Everything here has already been said. She merely treaded shallow water, tracing out a line that lasted, at best, as long as it took to trace. She spoke because it made the water ripple, the borrowed body and borrowed voice made moves that she could never make. She was docile in the heavy mass of a middle-aged man. “It might come true.” But it won’t come true, not if it had already come true. “Fine. This is who I am. Wonderful.”

This is who you are. Why don’t you go ahead? What’s stopping you? The longer you hold on, the more you drag him along. You only care about yourself. You bring down everyone around you. You— enough!She shoved her face into the water, held it there, hoping for something she would not get so she lifted it back out. Dripping wet, some of the saltwater got into her eyes. Instinctively she rubbed them, turning to see her reflection in the water. The hair, the vacant, judgmental stare as if saying, go ahead: Let go!

“You have a behavioral problem.” He took a step closer. “Whatever.” A second and third step as he reached into her, into him, the body that could only be his, and he looked into her eyes using hers. Unlike him, she could see much farther. “Why are you so angry?” He might have said something, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Hers was talk to fill the gap, the nothingness that seemingly bloated the vastness of the ocean surrounding them, the relative size of the coffin compared to all the death that filled the water.

“I’m not.” But she was. “Maybe you did it.”

When it was she who might have really done all of this. Past anger, she felt remorse for how she acted, and not just now, but always. “Now how could I do such a thing?” She could only feel remorse long after the point of it making a difference.

This is a line that is written to hide the fact that she no longer hides from anything but herself. She reached in, maybe hoping that in reaching into her body, she could prove something to herself. “Didn’t do it.” But she did. And she did that too, the details of which are all behind her, watching and judging from a distance. It was why this was penance. It was a perfect switching of places. In switching places, both were at their most vulnerable while facing the final ghosting effects of life. They were burrowed into bodies, borrowing from the one they knew best.

Seeing each other, they would be forced to face themselves.

Swim. It crept up toward him, the half-thought becoming heartfelt: Swim. The longer he remained at her side, the more ashamed he felt for having felt the way he did. Her fault? He couldn’t be sure she was anything but perfect. The longer they fought the waves, floated against the current, the more he could almost believe that he really could swim. He had been barely able to stay afloat during those days, when a heartbeat acted as backdrop to his prize, her. He stretched all the dollar signs as far as they could go, fed the edge of all fashion with imaginary currency. All for her, and yet he never felt like he was doing anything but drowning.

Swim. He had only the blue of the water, perhaps matching the blue of those borrowed eyes, around him to distract from what cannot be done. Just like him to believe that only he could apologize, that only he was at fault.

To hold on, there had to be another ledge. Of course the lonely ledge would be the one of a lover unwilling to let go. But see where this is going? This tale starts and stops, but has everything to do with the residual, the residue that remains of a person, ghost-like to those alive, barely a glimmer to those who have died. From the depths, the coffin is a blotch, something to swim to, if swimming would lead anywhere after you’ve met the ocean floor. He will be first. He is the first to let go.

He had reason to apologize, but it was so much easier to tempt the waters. Where she sat, he avoided, and avoiding in such a small coffin would have been impossible if they hadn’t the body to borrow. This was the problem. He could barely stand to see himself. If he turned to her, he would have to look at quite the sickly sight. His was a body that had been let go too early, at a time when there had been too much life left to walk.

The sea rippled, tensing up the five letters. Voiced on the waves, it was his voice, saying the word.

Sorry.

So sorry.

He had been so bitter, so angry. She reciprocated; they felt and fought the same woe. There had been conflict, peeling them apart as grief continued to set in. He watched the waves clash, the waves rolling to the unforeseen. The waves seemed to point the way. The waves ran into each other, the sound made upon colliding as if to say, delve deeper. If he jumped off the edge he would still be swimming. There’s no changing the fact that, in the tense exhales of aftermath, he now understood.

He had led them nowhere. He might have been confident that they could return but… return where? Therein lies the problem. He had no clear destination in mind.

The past, once so certain, simply met with the horizon, forming the entire expanse that eluded him.

The floating there was indeed a waiting, in the same way what he worded-out as a perfect apology was simply more talk of the mind. The mind unraveled, talking itself into untold corners that should have been a helpful shadow under a scorching sun, pulverizing his ability to see. And yet he watched, looking for signals in the sea. Sorry.

Sorry for having shouted at you. Sorry for making no sense. Sorry for being nonsense. Sorry for letting this happen. I might have saved you. And then, as per the talk of talking back, more apologies, sorry for thinking that I could.

Having to say something, this is what he said:

“I love you.” He meant it but he wanted to tell her so much more than those three words, a phrase that synchronizes the various complications that turn any relationship into a wreckage of memory and breakneck feelings, a kind of loathing that led to the desire to love again.

I love you.It wasn’t an apology but it would have to do. No more looking away. He used his turn to face her. He blinked once and decided that her eyes would once again be hers.

She closed one eye and cupped her hand around the other, focusing in on a patch of water where waves merged to mimic the shape of a human mouth. The sea wanted to speak, but all she heard were the words that she kept to herself. Accusatory in nature, she hid in the borrowed body, secretly attacking herself for having pushed the only one still close by, even after everything, and quite literally everything, disappeared beyond the horizon. He remained her anchor and chain as much as she was his. Never mind their past; never mind their future. The present was what got the best of her. It was what worried her most. It was what pulled at her, a threat that nothing would change; no matter how much she did to bargain a better draw.