The Fun We've Had Read Online Free Page A

body borrowed much like his breath ceases to exist, his name registered both here on the page and in his memory at the same time.
    He couldn’t remember.
    He couldn’t remember his name.
    Perhaps he could remember if he tried to give a little bit more about himself but by all accounts it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to give much more if the name is as hopeless as the words he cannot help but speak.
    This body of his, it looked so familiar.
    “I know you.”
    Three words dripped down those red lips, lips that should have never been his. Not with the kind of mouth he had, known to sprinkle language better left unsaid. Everything he said never really stained his white teeth, but a younger, more innocent body like this might turn into a monster based on his tendency to break free and tempt disaster. It’s why he got along so well with her.
    Tempting a disease, it grabbed him as much as it grabbed her. Doubt is quite similar to denial as long as he desired something other than this. But enough about desire.
    Desire is what got him here. Desire is what got her to dare in the first place. Enough about that.
    For this to work, he needed to be aware. For this to really work, he needed to lower his face near the water and stare at what stared back at him. Various faces, gestures formed in hopes of turning that face into a frown. For this to work, he needed to feel empty. No matter what face he made, what looked back at him failed to look how he wanted it to look.
    Mouth open, jaw hanging, he watched as a grin formed.
    What was there to smile about?
    By the look of the borrowed body, he was a girl, a life as-of-yet to design, a life already in decline.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     
    HER TURN
     
     
     
     
     
    She yawned and it was a yawn that shook free the very fact that, broken neck or not, she could move this body beyond any clear reason. She could crack the spine in five places. Bend an arm back in the wrong direction. She turned her neck one hundred and eighty degrees, stopping only when she saw him.
    He could be found on the other side of the coffin, head hanging over the edge, dipped in as if drowning were still a probable means of demise.
    Demise had passed them.
    Past demise there is no clear direction, not if you are here, and hold on to what cannot be rightfully named.
    At least not right now, though it might be obvious, in the grander scene, the scenario in its entirety, what must happen to see anything distinct on the horizon, to reach landfall.
    So she was a middle-aged man.
    So what?
    Wishing it could have been that easy to dismiss.
    Yet when she really looked at him, she saw past the young girl staring back with that grin across her face, with the opposite of what he must have felt; she saw through the borrowed body and it was enough for her to sit up, move her own borrowed body in a way that it hadn’t been moved in some time.
    She sat forward, elbows on knees, and coughed. Or at least tried to cough.
    The not coughing got his attention. She watched as he skipped toward her, tilting the entire coffin, nearly flipping it over. Maybe he wanted to breathe out, exhale, emphasizing that he was relieved, but instead jaw hung heavy when the breath did not come. Since he tried, her try couldn’t end in any other way than what she had witnessed.
    She held her belly like a newborn child. Cradling it dearly, she looked around as he closed his eyes, hopeful and youthful despite what little could be seen.
    He sat and she sat because what else could they do but sit side-by-side and stare out toward the ocean turning colors, red, green, orange, than black, before returning to blue? All colors in the spectrum but the one color they liked best. The one they would never admit, which is why they sit and why they continued to sit as day turned into night, night back into day, with the sun never lowering, not even once.
    She pretended that she could still breathe; they both