Three rounds

Vomit drips down the bricks on the outside of his building. He doubles over again, his stomach cramping violently, his face red and contorted in pain. It passes for a moment and he takes a breath, panting and exhausted from the effort of regurgitating what he's sure must be inner organs by now. Then it starts again and he lurches back to the window, this time producing a speckled mixture, pink at first then followed by much darker spots of red. Blood. His eyes widen at the sight of it, pupils dilating, whites showing more prominently, a horse that has just been startled. He knows what this means.

The bell rings and the crowd goes silent. The fighters adjust their gloves and eyeball each other from opposing corners of the ring. There is real hate in their stares. They’re getting ready to start.

He looks out his window at the city that is already awake, it has been awake for hours now, and inhales the mess of noise created by people and vehicles below. Although the din penetrated his room hours ago, it didn’t wake him. He never slept to begin with. Instead he spent the night bent over the toilet, the sink, arriving finally at the window sill for this morning's final showdown. It wasn’t the first night spent like this. If he tries, he can’t even remember a night that wasn’t like this one. But he knows all too well that it could be the last.

The prancing around the ring is over; it’s on for real now. Their muscles warm and stretched, they assume their positions. Round One: Fight!

The walls in his room are not painted but consist of exposed bricks jutting out from what was once white plaster. Sometimes when he isn’t seeing things clearly, which is often, he thinks it looks almost like art. So many different colours, a veritable kaleidoscope - blood both fresh red and old brown, dried shit smears, vomit stains and pieces of old photos, some still in colour and others so faded it’s hard to fathom how they’ve survived the horrors that have taken place in here.

There isn't much furniture: a mattress on the floor covered in stains he dare not look at, broken in sections where the wire edges of inner springs stick out, springs that scratch his legs during the rare moments when he does sleep. He doesn’t need to think about the bacteria growing in there; the glare of infection from the swelling around his scratched legs, the blood and festering pus is more than enough.

The bathroom has a sink and a tub, both black in colour now with spots of green where mould thrives. Not that it bothers him. He doesn’t use either really, he hasn’t been able to bathe for a long time now. There’s the obligatory chair and table set, plastic and metal of the cheapest sort. The table littered with meal containers full of rotting food he knows he never ate, containers that are now home for cockroaches and maggots, crawling in the filth that to them is a kingdom of untold treasure.

Bruises are showing now, one fighter has a split lip and the other a cut above his left eye. But they’re panting and blood thirsty, ready for more. The bell rings. Round Two: Fight!

It seems that he has spent years here, lurching about, vomiting and spending days semi-comatose on his broken bed. In his broken body. With his broken mind.

Sometimes he finds himself staring into the mirror for hours on end. Just standing there, leaning on the sink with his hands, his emaciated frame screaming at him from the mirror. The sunken eyes and hollow gaze, the colourless skin that speaks only of death. He can stare into his eyes for hours on end, until he is trapped inside them, not seeing anything anymore. He wonders whether his eyes ever had any colour beyond the endless black of his pupils.

He feels calm now, his insides have settled and the pains have subsided. As he looks around the room, seeing nothing and knowing everything, he wonders whether it is over or whether this is the proverbial calm before the storm.

If there is a storm coming, he knows it won’t be a matter of rain and wind. There will be no putting out buckets and pots out to catch the leaks from the roof. It will be the storm to end all storms. He has nothing left to give, finally. After another round he won’t be standing anymore.

The bruised and battered fighters pull themselves upright and wipe the blood dripping from their injuries. It is no secret who will win this fight. Round Three: Fight!

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