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.

  HIS TURN

  “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.”

  And because it was her body that he borrowed, when he released the water back into the sea, vomiting it up effortlessly, she watched it once again unfold.

  But for once he retorted and felt the sort of relief that is fleeting, the feeling of satisfaction that she had felt in the moment before this.

  All the lines delivered and the mouthfuls of water gulped down, all of it laced in a fake sort of anger, a sort of resentment that only needed to be there so that she could identify that she might have gone too far. Ultimately, it was his humble move toward letting more of this go.

  Letting the tale continue rather than derail.

  Her resentment was truer now that it was, here and now, written to state that he, not she, was first to let go of the anger, admit the anger, and look for the pieces that could still be offered some sort of apology.

  Here was his first, maybe, if she would take it plain.

  But of course she wouldn’t, and she didn’t. She would take the coffin as far as one could plot a course through this sea, and given his efforts with the paddling, the unpredictability of life, it would not be very far.

  HER TURN

  […] See that? The ellipses in brackets, bracketed together as an indication of omission, how their dialog, no matter how organic and honest, will always fall flat, always involve saying while what they felt, what they might be feeling at least distantly, becomes erased by each additional word.

  This is how she felt as it crept on her too.

  The anger subsiding.

  He fought back.

  Typical and it was typical of her to respond to his actions with sarcasm, with dry and dead jealousy. There was no just cause for jealousy. But indeed there it was.

  And there it led her, right into those blue eyes, the kind of blue that every film and every summertime television show duped people into believing the sea could be that perfect.

  Into the blue, she saw what only she could see in herself: the pride of a young preteen, inflated beyond managing, the sort of thing that might involve mixing in the word “perfection” among every line having to do with her looks.

  Voiceless she let that borrowed body of hers sink.

  As he drank the water that she let into the coffin, she sank deeper into the color blue as it painfully made it clear that what she had fought was what she couldn’t bear to see.

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  […]

  If there would be any blame, how about blaming the pride, the poor image-development, how the smile that still managed to be cast across his face even though he couldn’t be smiling, was the result of endless sessions at the mirror, her ceaselessly practicing each flattering gesture, examining each inch of her face and body for wrinkles, problems, something fixable.

  Additional blame being that she brought in the water, like she might have brought them here. She brought him closer to danger. She used everything that was available to use, and she was the type to take advantage, to become bitter when things weren’t skewed her way… and the fact is she still is all of these things, despite all that she can no longer be.

  She made him drink all that water, but it was her body that took it all in. Fault, and, by far, the word would be transformed into the basis of what she saw. Fault. Hers.

  Nowhere near perfect. Frankly what she saw, her tongue scraping against the floor of the coffin, was pathetic.

  She could think of herself as nothing more than that.

  HIS TURN

  Well now. Are you well? You don’t look well. You might be sick. You might need help. I can help you. You can’t do this all by yourself. I can help. I want to help you. I will care double to make up for your carelessness.

  Words to live by. They were words from a dialogue hushed by the inability to tell her any of it. Instead he had told her, “This argument of ours is proof that we have made progress!”

  Even if they had, it looked like both him and her kept as far away from each other as they possibly could. They pushed away instead of pulling closer. There was a great lingering, a dauntless display of what they simply could not do. He lingered to one side while taking quick, jittery glances in her direction.

  For all he knew, she did the same.

  He could still taste the vomit in his mouth.

  Bright sunny day bore into their borrowed bodies, enough that they couldn’t keep it up for long. He looked and then looked away. She looked and waited until he looked again. Eyes met; there was no affection, only a deep longing, a lingering that felt like an apology.

  He was first. He would always be the one that started and she would always be the one that stopped.

  He walked over, found a spot near her, and looked into those tired eyes. Unable to take it for much longer than a glance, he knelt down near the side of the coffin and looked into the water.

  His reflection was her reflection. Breathlessly, he imagined exhaling relief. He had missed seeing her. Every time he looked at her, he had to look beyond her. But not when he looked into the water. Looking into the water, he could really see her, and then there was talk. He had wanted to talk.

  Talking let him hear her voice.

  “Now how is that not the exact same thing as demise?”

  What would he say to that?

  “His heart is now stone.” Felt where her heart would be and having failed to find it, he understood that it was his heart that he was looking for. It was his heart that he couldn’t find.

  “I have a number of ideas.”

  “Help is help and I am here to help.” Help wanted.

  He liked hearing the sound of her voice.

  “I worry about you.”

  The way her voice almost sounded certain and caring when he spoke. He needed to hear it again. “Why do you care?”

  It sounded like she still cared. Cared about him, cared that they could be so close and yet so distanced from each other. He heard only the tone and inflection of each line, lived by the way each sounded, evidently aware that she should never have been made to say these things.

  “How long are you going to hold your breath?”

  “I’ve never been this close.”

  “You are already dead as far as I’m concerned.” It was then, with his arms crossed, hands hiding in the curve of each arm, that he understood what he had borrowed. A moment of worry replaced with a moment of grace. Again and again he will hesitate and he will suffer from a distant and old, a tireless worry. The hesitation will appear to her as a lacking, a gesture of doubt, of jealousy, the narrow yet wide range of deceit, again and again, because he couldn’t just reach for her hand. He couldn’t just tell her what he now knew. Reaching for her hand, he’d only grasp air. To touch her hand, he would later learn to bring both of the borrowed body’s hands together, clasped in mock prayer. Maybe he’d pray, pretending that she could feel this too. For now, he plunged one hand into hers, his body, and seeing what he had done, she plunged her hand into his, her body. The perfect moment to say something. Say that he had done it to save her. Say that he had done it because it was how he could remain close to her. Say whatever can be said. It would make no difference.

  This was all talk of the mind.

  HER TURN

  This is a line written to fill in for what she could not express. This is another line written for all the lines she will never be able to say, much less explain. And this line represents the halves that she’ll never identify. Every other line is written using the half that still remains, the half that keeps glancing at her when she isn’t looking. It’s the only half of her that’s left, and it’s the part of her that she does not want to see. The rest became part of the telling.

  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.

  HIS TURN

  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.

  HER TURN

  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.

  Reverted to the past, she rode out the same lines that could be reread, if one desired, in the preceding turns, during that stage of letting go that had brought her to this juncture in the first place.