The Fun We've Had Read Online Free Page B

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