A Martial Artist Meets his Match

A short story by Fletcher Kovich

 

The sun had risen ten minutes ago and Jack Hutton walked into his bathroom. After fourteen years of training as a martial artist, he possessed a marble-like confidence in his ability to meet any earthly challenge. So confident was he that his usually calm and blank expression had even begun to adopt an occasional twinkle of complacency. But this he resisted, for he knew that such flaws were the downfall of champions. One day, he knew, he would meet his match. He reached for the soap but it was not there. In disbelief he looked down at the washbasin’s empty surface. Unable to believe the evidence of his eyes, he began involuntarily rubbing the porcelain, as if to check that he was not hallucinating, or as if to perform some magic spell that might liberate the soap from its invisibility. Whatever his intention, he was disappointed, as the soap did not reappear.

The previous day, Maryanne, his girlfriend, had moved in with him. Over the past eight years of living in his flat, he had never before had to locate a misplaced item. Each possession had its proper place and every task its correct procedure. His household had become as efficient as a martial arts routine and he was alarmed at how enraged he felt simply because Maryanne had moved his soap. He located the “hidden” soap, used it and replaced it in its proper place. While his eyes were closed, he reached for a towel but found only empty air. Again, like a conjuror he began involuntarily waving around in the air where the towel should have been, but his magic did not work. He dried his eyes with his fingers, located the missing towel, used it and replaced it in its proper place. He took a deep breath and exited the bathroom. His morning had never been so fraught.

He found Maryanne in the kitchen and noticed his breakfast had been prepared. In the bedroom earlier, she had asked, “What do you usually have for breakfast?”

“Porridge, but I’ll make it.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“No, I’ll make it,” he told her as he headed for the bathroom.

With each of his meals, he had developed the recipes and cooking procedures so as to maximize the nutritional value and flavour. When he noticed she had used the wrong procedure to prepare the porridge, his acquaintance with calmness grew distinctly chilly.

He looked to Maryanne, who was now doing the washing up, and he noticed she was also using the wrong procedure there. Her dish stacking was inadequate. He rearranged the dishes into the most efficient draining position and managed to calmly tell her, “I was going to make the porridge.”

“It’s no trouble,” she reassured him.

He turned away to get a cup and as he opened the cupboard, he noticed her rearranging the washed dishes back into their “incorrect” draining position. He looked into the cupboard and found the cups had also been rearranged. He moved them back to their correct position, took out his “morning” mug, then noticed the kettle was now in a different position, as was the water jug, and that Maryanne had emptied the water jug without refilling it. This meant he now had to refill the jug himself and wait for it to filter through before he could take a drink of water. But Maryanne had filled the sink with her washing up, which made it impossible for him to refill the jug, which meant he had to wait even longer before he could quench his rising thirst.

Through years of training, Jack had managed to defeat his temper, for to lose your temper was not only to lose any immediate skirmish, but also to harm your own health in some small way. But as he now stood there holding the empty jug, his eyes began misting with muted rage. He watched Maryanne and wondered how it was that his years of training had been so easily overturned by simply having a few of his household procedures disrupted.

Maryanne turned to him, smiled and said, “Isn’t it a wonderful morning?”

Jack said, “Yes, it’s marvellous,” and left the kitchen.

On the following morning he moved the soap and towels back to their proper places, then again on the next morning, and the next. This same thing happened to the objects on his living room shelving. He would move them back to their proper position only to find they would seemingly move again of their own accord. He came to seriously believe that a poltergeist had taken up residence in his flat.

Due to his training, his senses were focused on detecting energy—both the energy field that emanated from all people, and also the energy they left behind when absent—and he could sense the presence of this poltergeist in the same way he sensed the energy of a martial arts opponent. It felt as though some force—which was separate from Maryanne—had occupied his flat, though it had obviously been brought there by her, as though it were the mind of some malicious entity that had attached itself to her and wherever she went, so did it. In the kitchen, when he now picked up a jar, it would fall from his hands, its lid having been left unscrewed. He would tighten it, only to find when he next picked it up, it would again drop from his hands. His laundry was now folded differently and placed on the wrong shelves; his books, left open for convenience, were now tidied away; objects, which he lay in certain places as a reminder to perform certain tasks, would disappear; and in the kitchen he would take out a knife and a few seconds later would go to use it only to find it had also vanished. It was as though some supernatural force had been set upon him with the intention of eroding his sanity.

He began his daily practice by holding a stance for one hour in his living room. The following morning he had been standing in the Praying Mantis Takes Flight position for forty minutes while pondering the poltergeist’s antics. He imagined a jar lid slowly turning and he could sense the poltergeist nearby, as an invisible cloud of energy. He watched one of his books fold itself up and levitate back onto the bookcase, and there too was that cloud and for the first time he saw clearly its intention. Its purpose in life was simply to oppose him. He imagined the cloud moving the cups in his cupboard around, destroying his efficiency, his economy; it seemed as though it was unpicking his every thought of the past eight years. Any design he had developed, to either save time or space, or to improve flavour or texture, it seemed the poltergeist had been set upon him to destroy those things, to, perhaps, feed upon his designs. Perhaps (he mused) that was the purpose of such a force. It fed upon human designs and sought to restore the randomness of nature. Perhaps, perhaps.

He recalled Maryanne’s voice saying, “That was nice,” and he saw her smiling face.

Of course he knew it was she who had moved these objects and of course he had said to her, “You keep leaving the lids unscrewed.”

“Oh really? How interesting,” she said.

 “Where are my shoes? I always leave them here,” he said on another occasion, to which she said:

 “No, shoes should go here; it’s more tidy.”

And when he said: “I left that there to remind me to pay the phone bill,” she had said nothing, had merely glanced at him while deep in thought; and recalling this now, he could see the meaning in her glance. It was the poltergeist that was looking back out at him through her eyes and it was saying, “Yes, I am here to resist you; my purpose in life is to un-build human endeavours, and the more focussed they are, the more they attract me,” and, silently, from within Maryanne’s eyes, the poltergeist had fixed him with its hungry gaze.

He recalled her face, the eyes, cheekbones and lips that had made Joe (his best friend) catch his breath, and Nick say, “If only I wasn’t married,” and Alan, nudging him, to say: “Jack, what are you waiting for?—she’s looking at you.” And he succumbed to the temptation, not the temptation of those lips and cheekbones, but the irresistible temptation of owning a possession that was so desired by his friends—for he was competitive.

He recalled lying in bed that morning. Maryanne had taken an interest in his body and then an increasing interest and before he knew what was happening he had joined in the dance and his hips had become possessed by an unstoppable motion like the rolling of the sea waves that corrugate a beach’s naked surface, rolling and rolling and then he was pumping his energy into her. He lay there afterwards, feeling drained and tricked, as though some cunning urchin had offered him gold and as he reached out to grasp it, it had stolen his energy instead.

“That was nice,” he distantly heard her saying.

Maryanne and the poltergeist, he knew, were separate, but he also knew he could not have one without the other, and the poltergeist’s invisible antagonism was coming close to defeating him—for to lose one’s temper was to lose the match.

While thinking these things, he had become aware of a humming noise and then, distantly, of Maryanne’s voice.

“This place is disgusting; how can you stand it?” she said, pushing his vacuum cleaner around the living room. “Can’t you move over there? I need to clean beneath you.”

She stood watching him but no response; he simply maintained his ridiculous pose. Despite herself, she raised her voice.

“I know you can hear me!”

Still no response, and there was now no doubt in her mind—he was deliberately ignoring her.

“Right! if you want to play it like that,” she said, and then began painstakingly cleaning the carpet around his feet, ensuring that every now and then she happened to bump the vacuum’s brush against his naked toes, which he did not respond to, causing her to notice an inexcusable amount of dirt on the carpet between his toes, which she could not help but attempt to reach with her ever more vigorous brush action, which proved to be an exhilarating workout for both her heart and her labouring arm and back muscles—what a release! push, push, push—until she found herself almost gasping with excitement. And just when she was beginning to enjoy herself, she looked up at his face and saw he was still pretending to have not noticed her. This was more than she could bear. She slapped his face.

Still no response.

She took a wide swing and slapped him as hard as she could and while she nursed her stinging hand she began scrutinizing his features for any response and then noticed his mouth gradually forming into a smile.

No woman should be mocked in this way and though she knew she ought to be offended by his bad manners, she was so dumbstruck by his performance that she forgot to scold him. Instead she threw the brush down and walked away, telling him, “You’re weird.”

Jack had smiled because he realized the solution. He would simply stop resisting the poltergeist. He would relinquish his likes and dislikes of years and bend his will to its. If it wanted his shoes placed in a particular place, or wanted to keep the lids of jars unscrewed, so be it. He smiled. This seemed perfect—if he did not insist on a design, how could the poltergeist unpick it? And as he was smiling, he was vaguely aware of Maryanne standing before him, gently waving her arms around.

A few days later, the poltergeist had seemed to vanish from his flat. He now left the soap where it placed it, his shoes, cups, towels, books, all where the poltergeist chose to place them, and he accepted any procedure for stacking washed dishes, cooking meals, folding laundry; he simply did not care about these things any more, and now that the poltergeist had no combatant, it seemed to have vanished. All that was left was Maryanne. But something about his submission had made him feel weaker, feel less of a man. Still, he felt that the victory was his, and all he needed to do now was to rest and restore his energy.

The following weekend he was up early, as usual. On this day his body was set in the Challenged Dragon Spits Venom position while his mind delighted in the previous night’s pleasures. He was struck by how much affection he had come to feel for Maryanne now that the poltergeist had vanished. After his practice, he found her in the bathroom and embraced her. They began kissing and he happened to open his eyes and found she was watching the mirror while they kissed. She looked over to him and they watched each other for a moment.

He broke off the kiss and said, “What are you doing?”

“Just checking we look okay together.”

“What?”

She nodded sheepishly at him—as if to indicate it was perfectly normal, though he thought he could detect some uncertainty in her mind.

“You’re weird,” he told her.

She pushed him away, “I’m weird!”

That evening, when she returned home from work he kissed her and mentioned: “You’ve got a cold cheek.”

Maryanne stood back from him, arrested by resentment. “What do you expect! I’ve just been outside. You would have a cold cheek if you’d been outside.”

The last thing he expected was for his affection to be mistaken for criticism and he responded with as much resentment as Maryanne’s: “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“I know you didn’t say that. I didn’t say you did say that. When did I say that?”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘What’ me.”

He looked surprised for a moment, then repeated, but in a different tone, “What?”

“I said ‘Don’t do that.’ Now you’re just mocking me. You always do this. When I’ve caught you out, you just look at me with an even more stupid face than usual and say: ‘What?’”

By now he was too puzzled to even manage to look puzzled. He simply said the only thing that came to his mind, which was “What?”

She told him, “I’ll get you back for this,” and pushed him aside.

The following morning he was pacing back and forth outside the locked bathroom, trying to decided whether or not it would be acceptable for him to urinate in the kitchen sink. Her name came to his lips repeatedly, “Maryanne? …. Maryanne!” but he thought better of calling out to her. He raised his hand to knock the door but again thought that unwise. As she finally opened the door, he was so relieved he forgot himself and mentioned, “You take so long in the bathroom.”

She stopped short in the doorway and asked: “—As long as you stand around in stupid poses doing nothing?”

He began to explain, “I’m not doing nothing….” but she interrupted:

“Well, I’m not doing nothing either. Or perhaps that’s what you feel. You think I’m worthless—is that it?”

He resumed his explanation: “It’s not the same. When I’m…”

“Why isn’t it? I’m doing a great deal more than you are. At least you can see what I’ve done,” she said, pointing at her face.

He looked at her blankly.

“—Can’t you?” she asked.

He looked closely at her face.

“—Well?” she demanded, seeming affronted that he should have inconsiderately developed an eyesight problem.

He sighed. “To be honest, I prefer you without all this muck on your face.”

“Muck! What are you talking about? This muck costs a fortune.”

“Hmmm,” he said, tilting his head sideways at her, as if the left side of his brain were suddenly thinking a heavy thought.

She surveyed the apparent weight of his thought, which seemed to then offended her even more: “It’s muck, is it!”

That evening they were due to go out and after the first hour of Maryanne’s seclusion in the bathroom had passed, he decided to stop pacing the living room and catch up on some reading. Two chapters later, she reappeared and, again, he could not help himself. He asked, “What do you do that takes so long?”

She was not possessed by resentment this time, for she had been expecting his insolence. She told him, “Well, first I adopt a stupid pose, then stand like it for an hour watching the mirror, trying to decide what muck to slap on my face, then I spend the next half hour slapping it on, all the time making stupid gestures with my arms. Satisfied?”

Something in her eyes told him that silence was the best policy. He simply nodded.

She turned away, satisfied herself, but then paused and turned back, “What do you mean, ‘Yes’?” She eyed him suspiciously, “What is it you’re satisfied with?”

He froze, as if suddenly robbed of the power of locomotion, as a fearful animal is thus robbed who finds itself caught in an expertly-laid trap. Every conceivable answer began racing through his mind, like panic-stricken escapees groping through smoke for an exit, but each answer stumbled to the floor when his mind heard Maryanne’s imagined retort. He found himself starting to say “Nothing,” but his tongue seemed to stick to the floor of his mouth, still apparently paralyzed, and, to his relief, Maryanne then simply shot him a dismissive expression and walked away.

When outdoors later, he began kissing her but then a thought struck him. He opened his eyes and found she seemed to be looking to his side while they kissed. He looked round and she was holding up a hand mirror.

“Where did you get that from?”

“I carry it in my bag.”

“Just so you can watch us kissing?”

“Of course! How else would I know?”

“You’re the weirdest girl I’ve ever known.”

“And how many have you known?”

“Well, only you really. Do you mean they’re all like you?”

“What do you mean ‘they’—do you think we’re all just meat?”

“What?”

“You heard. You called women ‘they’, like objects. You think we’re all just meat.”

“I didn’t say anything of the sort.”

“And now you’re trying to deny it. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No!” he said, in a panic.

“Ah, so that’s it, is it? You think I’m stupid.”

He opened his mouth to reply but thought better of it.

In this fashion, over the coming months he gradually retreated into silence. It was as though his very thoughts were being defeated, for each time one entered his mind it would falter, become lame and finally fall to the ground somewhere along the more and more tortuous route to his mouth. He had no idea how this had happened. In all his years of martial training, and of so effortlessly defeating foe after foe, he had not acquired a single move to counter such an opponent, nor had he even heard of such an opponent. Yet here she was, inside his mind, day in, day out, effortlessly hacking down the beautiful landscape he had cultivated for the past fourteen years.

Like a Western virus unwittingly transported to a remote Amazonian tribe which systematically destroyed their entire village, Maryanne’s personality had settled itself upon him and unwittingly devoured from within the object of her affections—for in matters of romantic jousting, Jack was as unpractised as those Amazonian villagers were in combating Western diseases. Before he met her, he had drawn strength from his isolation. But now, what had been his strength, had become his weakness.

Some months further on he had noticed a decline in his health, and his martial abilities began to escape him. He felt his health would soon resemble that of Joe and Nick and Alan whom he had previously regarded as supremely unfit. They had been, in his eyes, beacons of physical sloth, radiant examples of submission and defeat, and seemed to be fundamentally unhappy.

Sitting beside Joe now in a pub, Jack watched his puffy, pale face and wondered how long it would take his own to appear the same. But, he accepted, his own current state somehow seemed more natural than his previous healthy state. It felt as though this was what nature had intended, was the natural order of things—in the battle between men and women. He smiled a weak smile at Joe, who returned the weak smile, and they both returned to watching the football match on the pub TV, anesthetized by alcohol.

 

30 September 2010

 

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