Shadowboxed on the balcony at dawn. In the shadows, sunlight not yet reaching him. Skipped around potted plants, dodged drying washing, working up a sweat. Had slept out here, actually. At the bay till late with friends, watching containers being unloaded off of ships. Drinking, wrestling. In the haze talking about what to do for money – him more than the others. The others groaning when the subject came up again. Came home to the lights still on, the sound of his mother knocking things around in the kitchen like the night was only beginning, his father asleep on the sofa, the air stuffy with whatever disagreement they’d had. Took a pillow and some blankets onto the balcony and spread them out across the tiles. Woke when it was barely light to bird calls and the silhouette of his father leaning on the rail and smoking a cigarette. The Dead Man didn’t move, didn’t speak, couldn’t tell if his father knew he was there or not. Woke again at sunrise to the distant sound of radio chatter. 

Four sets of push-ups, his hands in a diamond shape under his chest. Then shadowboxed until his muscles burned. Jabs, hooks, uppercuts. Preparing for a fight that will not come. Dead but not dead.

…

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He is the author of two books, the short story collection Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father and 926 Years with Kyle Coma-Thompson. Midnight Grotesques, with Michelle Lynn Dyrness, is forthcoming from Sublunary Editions.