The Next Round
There was no crowd in the stands, no legion of screaming of fans anywhere in the auditorium. Nobody was jostling or munching on hotdogs or nachos; nobody was spilling beer and slurring cheers for their chosen champion. There was nobody in the building outside of the ring.
It was just a seventeen by seventeen box, three black ropes indicating the boundaries, and a handful of individuals. There was an old man working the bell, his wrinkled face so close to the timer that his jowls shook every time he rang the damn thing. There was a referee dancing around the mat, silver-haired yet nimble, the black and white of his uniform bouncing from one part of the ring to the next. He was a strange mixture of young and old, the kind of man who had seen many years but still had youth radiating from his eyes and his smile. His smile was big and bright as he officiated the match, his pristine black shoes always managing to dodge the blood staining the mat.
And, of course, there were the boxers.
Fighting out of the red corner was a fucking wall of muscle. This guy had to be at least eight feet tall and weigh several hundred pounds. His left jabs felt like shotgun blasts and his right hooks impacted with the force of ant-aircraft fire. The chorded muscles of his shoulders and chest looked like woven iron and the way he moved could only be described as beautiful, his feet like those of a classically trained ballet dancer. Shadows obscured his face, but his eyes shone out of the darkness. They weren’t a man’s eyes. They were animal, beastly, the kind of eyes one would imagine a hurricane or a tornado might have: angry, hateful, destructive. Hungry.
Fighting out of the blue corner was a dead man. He was decently muscled, the way a runner might be, and he wore it well on his sub six foot frame. Easily, he was several feet shorter and at least two hundred pounds lighter than his opponent. At this point, he was barely able to hold his gloves up and shambling was the only way to describe his footwork. His nose had been broken and was plastered awkwardly to his left cheek, blood drip-dripping from both nostrils onto his split lips; his right eyes was black and swollen shut, a gash open just under it; sight from the left eye wasn’t much better what with the sweat and blood getting in it. Two of his ribs were broken and breathing was as difficult a task as throwing punches. There was no way he could stay on his feet much longer.
The big guy struck, a nasty haymaker from the right, the kind of punch that starts at the hip and just pulls all the fighter’s weight to bear. It was a crushing blue and it rocked the smaller man something fierce, dislodging on his bottom molars. That should have been it, the ref should have called it, but he managed to stay standing. The wall of muscle threw a body shot, but the short fighter blocked, though he still sucked air through his teeth as if it had hurt. It probably did.
The bell dinged then and the referee sent both combatants back to their corners.
Slumping onto his stool, the small man knew that this had been a stupid decision. He could think of only a handful of fighters who had stuck around this long against his opponent, who hadn’t thrown in the towel after so many rounds, and he was hard pressed to think of a reason to keep plugging along. He had less than a minute to make up his mind—keep fighting or quit—and he wished that he knew what to do, wished he had someone in the corner to ask. Taking a deep, painful breath, he turned his gaze to the towel knowing it would be the best decision. His opponent was strong and fast, but hadn’t been completely untouched. The small boxer had even managed to win a few rounds. This last one, though, had definitely gone to the fucking force of nature just across the ring. How could he keep this going?
Closing his one good eye, the short fighter thought about why he was here, why he had picked this goddamned fight in the first place. It wasn’t for glory or for a belt or for money. No, this match was about survival. He had challenged the world to a fight and the world was winning, would ultimately win. He knew that, knew that in the end his opponent would break him completely, knew that there was no hope of victory. Sure, he could win a few rounds, but the world would win more. He was so rocked, so bruised and bloodied, so tired.
He reached for the towel.
“Really?” asked a voice in his head, a voice that was both his and not his. It was a voice that didn’t belong to him but it was still somehow his. “This is where you quit?”
“He’s too strong, too fast. What can I do?”
“You ball your fucking fists, raise your goddamned gloves, and you fight the way you have always fought.” The voice was someone else’s in his head, the voice of a fighter that stood in this ring before, fought this same opponent. He had been at that match, had been in her corner. “You don’t quit because you had a bad round! Don’t you touch that towel.”
“Do you see me!? I can’t keep this up…”
“Did you let me quit?” It was a mocking question, the kind she liked to use when she wanted to show his hypocrisy.
“You aren’t here!”
“And whose fault is that?”
It was his he knew, his fault that he was alone in this corner. But as he heard her scream at him in his head, he knew he wasn’t alone, not really. She was still here, this boxer who took on the world and lived to tell about it, and he could feel her. His gloves weren’t as heavy the more she yelled, breathing didn’t hurt nearly as much. His cracked lips formed a brutal smile.
“Now get your ass up.”
The bell dinged again and he jumped off his stool, smashing his gloves together, ready as hell for the next round.
