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.

  HIS TURN

  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.

  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.

  HER TURN

  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.

  HIS TURN

  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.

  HER TURN

  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.

  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.

  […]

  “Oh your dad…”

  […]

  “My dad, what?”

  […]

  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…

  […]

  “This isn’t yours.”

  […]

  “This is my house.”

  […]

  “You don’t pay for anything.”

  […]

  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.

  HIS TURN

  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.

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  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.

  HER TURN

  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.”