The Fight I Could Never Win Ch. 02

I was exceedingly grateful that I had never considered an alarm clock to be a necessity. Glowing digits calmly informed me that I had slept in several hours past my usual time, which, judging by the aches that seemed to permeate my entire body, was for the best. The injuries from the fight were fairly minor, although rib damage was rarely pleasant. Be that as it may, my back was in a far worse condition: it was as if I could still feel the sole of that damned boot.

With that thought, memories of the past night seeped back into my mind. Memories of helplessness, pain, and surrender. One woman, an anonymous force as far as I was concerned, had taken part of my freedom away from me. She had hijacked control of my life, if only to the extent that her syndicate required in the ring. Even a little bit of power felt like a tremendous loss. I no longer had a monopoly on my own decisions, which was not something I could lightly ignore or forget.

Feeling like someone had pumped molten lead into my spine, I hauled myself out of bed. Unsurprisingly, coffee was not much of an antidote for what I was feeling. My body would recover soon enough, I knew that much. I had taken far worse on innumerable occasions. My physical self was not what worried me. I had never felt anything quite like the previous night in my entire life. Somehow, she had affected me in a way that no woman, gang, fighter, or danger ever had. Nobody and nothing had ever made me feel powerless like that.

New as this was, I had enough experience to know that sitting still and frowning at an empty mug would solve nothing. Proper training could wait for a day or two, that was normal for me anyway. I decided to go for a run and attempt to clear my head. The weather was far from the worst that late autumn had to offer, grey but reasonably pleasant. I dressed, mentally plotted out a few kilometers of city block finishing at a park, locked the apartment, and headed out.

The cool air was refreshing, and I soon reached a comfortable rhythm. Sure enough, a complacent emptiness washed away most of the anger and shame. Leaving the work to my legs, I took in some of the sights of the street, nothing more impressive than a few storefronts and a trickle of pedestrians, but still a good object for a distracted mind's idling. The slideshow of the mundane was, as usual, oddly relieving. Somewhere, or at least most somewheres, life went on as usual.

Upon reaching that philosophical 'depth,' I noticed that the bare trees of the park were now close enough to see. Most of the leaves had fallen by now, but there were still a few determined stragglers. Slowing to a jog for my last few steps, I stopped and took in a satisfied breath. I had only run a few kilometers at a solidly average pace, but the sense of accomplishment seemed to have the upper hand over logic.

Faintly grinning for no particular reason, I leisurely made my way to an unoccupied bench, relishing the simple pleasure of sitting down after absent-mindedly performing a few quick cool-down stretches. Given the circumstances, I was in an excellent mood, not feeling any need for much sensation besides vague contentment. This was a thoroughly unobjectionable situation.

"Mind if I take the other half?"

Just as I had begun to close my eyes for no reason other than sheer relaxation, a slightly out-of-breath but enthusiastic voice reopened them.

"Hmm?"

I was confronted with another runner, a fairly young woman with a wholly unremarkable figure covered by a grey tracksuit and eyes covered by lightly tinted sunglasses. She, too, seemed to be experiencing a sort of runner's high.

"The bench. It's not like you need the whole thing, right? Come on, I don't feel like walking all the way to the next one, and I'm not about to stab you or anything."

Her youthful- I suppose vigor would be the best word- elicited a somewhat bemused smile, and I reflected that this was essentially what came to mind with the words "little sister." Deciding to ignore the implications of that particular thought, I managed an answer.

"Uh- sure, go for it. Public bench, after all."

Despite the fact that I was both actively unenthusiastic and clearly barely paying attention, she seemed to take this as an occasion to celebrate, flashing a grin before unceremoniously flopping onto the wood a few feet to my right. I couldn't help but smile a little again, she reminded me of a child, in a way, despite that fact that she was clearly around the age of twenty.

"Nice day, isn't it?"

She and I clearly had different conceptions of what constituted the proper approach to a situation involving multiple minutes within some sort of proximity to a total stranger.

"It's... yeah, nice. I like the snow better, but this is alright too."

Apparently my response was part of unknown code, a signal for "energetically pursue social interaction." Unfortunately, I had no knowledge of this code, let alone a working counter to that prompt.

"Me too! This isn't really my favorite season either. That's probably spring. Not because of all the flowers and stuff, though, that's why we have wallpaper and colorful things for inside. I like the rain, makes an umbrella seem like a real privilege, and it's nice to feel like I'm actually using the thing, too."

I considered trying to extract a little sense from that statement. The consideration was short. Sense was simply not forthcoming, and I was probably better served by a simple acknowledgement.

"Umbrellas. Nice."

"I know! My favorite is... probably the green one. It's really cute- oh, but you'd probably rather hear about the one my uncle gave me a few years ago. It's the kind with a little sword inside the handle!"

The sheer wattage of her grin made it clear that a monosyllable was not going to be accepted this time. Unwilling, for some reason, to ruin her happy, oblivious ramble, I cobbled together what felt like an appropriately interested response.

"Oh, you have one of those? I didn't know those really existed much outside of movies and things like that. Your uncle sounds like a pretty interesting guy."

Something occurred to me, might as well ask.

"Also- what makes you think I'd be more interested in the sword umbrella?"

"Easy, you're a fighter."

I might as well have asked how many oranges comprised a dozen, given her apparent confidence in the simplicity of the reasoning.

"Oh, come on, your knuckles look like they've been run over by a truck a while ago, and I'd have to be blind not to notice that you've broken that nose at least once."

"You could tell my nose was fixed?"

"I'm a medical student. That's not exactly a hard one."

I was admittedly surprised. Bubbly but intelligent was a bit of a curveball, not something that had come up a lot since I graduated a lousy technical high school a little less than a decade ago. Graduation more or less marked the last time the I talked much to anybody particularly smart who wasn't involved in some sort of crime. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but she was still definitely something unusual, considering the way I lived.

"Hmm. Well, I admittedly didn't expect that. Good for you."

She rolled her eyes a little at that. She was probably right, I was sure I sounded like a grandparent or aged uncle just then.

"Relax, relax, it's alright to sound old when you're over thirty-five. It happens!"

"Over thirty-five? I'm twenty-eight!"

A laugh that would have seemed perfectly normal from someone half her apparent age informed me that I had just walked straight into a fairly simple joke at my own expense.

"Sensitive, are we?"

I couldn't help but laugh a little myself, something that I realized I hadn't done in a while.

"Ha. Didn't anyone ever tell you to respect your elders?"

Much to my surprise, I was trading bits of humor with an effervescent twenty-something medical student. The notion crossed my mind that she was essentially the opposite of the looming shadow in my life. I quickly chased the idea out of my thoughts, I was enjoying myself too much to want to think of such a discouraging thing, true or not.

"Does that mean you really are old?"

"Aren't people supposed to talk less when they're tired, not more?"

"Yawn. No fun, I might as well just go to sleep then, and I can do that when I get home. I have the week off, and it's nice to have something to do when I feel energetic."

"So you go running and find strangers to talk to about umbrellas?"

She almost seemed to pause for a split second, but the omnipresent grin was back in no time.

"Not really, you just seemed agreeable enough, so I figured I'd have a go at sitting down rather than just walking to get a drink. Besides, we're not really strangers after talking this much, are we?"

"We met three minutes ago, and we've talked about seasons, umbrellas, and my age. That's not exactly an in-depth experience."

"Alright, I'm Julie. Now we're definitely not strangers!"

Before I knew it, I was laughing again, probably for no reason other than the suddenness and outright energy of her response, as if that fact was an irrevocably convincing confirmation of our new status as acquaintances. It was clearly good enough for her, as evidenced by yet another appearance of her ear-to-ear grin. Her face somehow seemed set up for that expression, short hair held back by a headband to prevent anything from obstructing the view of teeth, and bright eyes regarding dark lenses as no obstacle to expression of youthful enthusiasm, logical or not. Before I could produce another word, let alone my own name, she was right back in full motion.

"Hey, wait here for a second, alright?"

Taking my blank stare as a form of approval, she darted off in the direction of the city. Well, I had no plans to go anywhere anyway. No harm in sitting for a few more minutes. The thought from earlier returned: this was essentially the opposite of last night, as far as experiences with women were concerned. In fact, a lot of men would be energetically thanking whoever or whatever they worshipped or considered a guiding power to have had this sort of encounter. I had to admit to myself that she was, by any standards, nothing other than (for lack of a better word) cute. All the same, in an odd way, the whole encounter seemed to somehow lack depth of some sort.

I was in a truly outstanding mood. She was a lot of fun. I hadn't even bothered hoping for this sort of thing for a long time. For whatever reason, I just didn't meet a lot of people, and it had never bothered me much. I was more or less an individual operator, and that was fine. Even so, to be completely honest, I was excited to be in this position. That said, I could not shake the feeling that, somewhere, there was something that affected me in a deeper, more real way.

I was not granted the luxury of exploring that discouraging line of thought.

"Catch!"

A bottle hit me in the chest. Red sports drink. This must have been what I was waiting that "second" for. Looking up, my suspicion was, of course, confirmed. Julie was taking a long drag from a similar, orange bottle.

"Go ahead, it's not like I need two. You like the red kind, right?"

She slid right back into her former position, looking expectantly at me.

"Hey, thanks! Yeah, red is just fine, I owe you one, I guess."

Her response was put on hold for another go at the orange sugar water, which was, alarmingly, already more than three quarters depleted.

"Don't sweat it! Well, do sweat it, that's the point of the thing, good to stay hydrated, but relax. Nice to actually meet someone who doesn't mind hearing about umbrellas for a bit."

Once again, I found myself laughing. Her mood was infectious. An alarming "glug" informed me that she had already polished off the remainder of her bottle, which she further clarified with a satisfied exhale.

"Alright, well, nice meeting you! Have a good one!"

She flashed me that grin of hers one last time before jogging off the opposite direction from where I lived, leaving me with a slack jaw, a healthy dose of confusion, and a bottle of sugar-heavy red "sports" fuel. I simply sat there for what felt like a few minutes, more dazed than anything else.

Abruptly, my reverie was broken. I had found the answer to my earlier question: the deeper emotional investment, the depth that had seemed deeper than a spectacularly lucky encounter with an oddly pretty runner. Her. The shadow, the monster, the tormenting threat in the corners of my life. She had commanded my desires, controlled me from the spirit. That, and not Julie of the green umbrella, was the greater power for me. I wanted to believe anything else, and managed to push the thought mostly out of my mind. I knew I would not forget it. I wanted to. It was not going to happen.

Suddenly, I felt very alone, sitting on a park bench, surrounded by dead trees and holding a cold bottle. Lightly shaking my head, I unscrewed the cap and tried to lose a little bit of myself in the sugary contents.