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
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