The Twelfth Round

Sitting on the small wooden stool in the corner of the ring he can hear the crowd chanting his name. A requiem to a long, lost hero whose time has long since been over. The sound echoing in his ringing ears like a distorted hum… his eyes blurred and burning from the blood and sweat as it drips down his beaten face. One last fight… one last time… that’s all he has left to be the man he once was. Every memory singed into his mind and replaying over and over again as he longs for the feeling of pride he once carried like a shield. A shield that kept out the despair… that held back the fear and the pain of all the inadequacies that haunted his soul day after day like a ghost in the shadows. A shield that was no more impenetrable or indestructible than a frail pane of glass in a raging storm. It was nothing more than an illusion that kept the fires burning long enough to make it through one more fight… one more triumph… one more defeat… just one more day of this life he has been forced to live.

No… he was no longer that young, fierce, audacious man that others both feared and admired. That man was gone… along with the decades that seemed to pass like a crack of lightening bursting through the darkened, night sky… along with the wife he once loved and the sons who have now married and begun lives of their own… along with everything he once loved and cherished.

All of it… gone.

Now as he looks into the mirror, he sees that the harsh reality of what he has become is all that he will ever be. The scars that trace down his aged face tell the tale of this now beaten, broken, defeated shell of a man. This once great man who so desperately wants just one more chance to prove that he is more than what is reflecting back at him… that he is more than a washed-up ex-champion who has lost everything precious to him in his humbled existence, struggling just to keep his head above water as he watches everything burn around him.

He hears the muffled ring of the bell, and the roar of the crowd signifies just one more round to prove to himself that he is more than just a washed-up old man whose time has gone… he is more than a piece of old trash to be thrown out… he is more than just something to be used up and replaced when someone has grown tired of him… more than just one more thing to be erased as if he never existed. He struggles to stand as his tired legs shake under the weight of his aching body. Pain rages through every cell, and his lungs burn like fire as he fights to draw in just one more breath.

His burning eyes barely make out his young adversary through the red haze of blood and sweat distorting his ailing vision. He’s coming at him fast… a rush of adrenaline races through his blood stream as he draws his right arm back to swing. His weight leaning heavy on his trembling right leg… he swings forward… he prays that this round… the last round… will bring him the brief moment of glory that his soul so desperately begs for. His fist stops with merciless force as it connects with his rival’s jaw… his arm shakes and quivers as the burning agony floods through him. A blinding pain shoots through him as a flash of lights burst across his eyes. He can see the blurred crowd as he falls to the mat and a deep blackness attempts to overcome his tired mind. This is it… this was the last chance he had to be what he once believed he was. He blinks… trying to wave off the dark and push himself off the floor.

But he cannot.

Pain rages through him as he fights against the darkness that is trying to immerse him in defeat. He tries again… but the mat is pulling at him like a magnet. He shakes as he pushes against the blood-stained mat. But every ounce of strength has been bled from his weary body… and his used-up life. This is it… the last round. He has lost all that he was… all that he wanted… all that he has fought for… all that he will ever be.

This was the twelfth round…

~ Alethea J Salazar  © 2019