Requiem For A Lightweight.

Subject: Requiem For A Lightweight.
From: Anomalon
Date: Jan 26 2006 2:02PM

Somewhere In The Middle

Today is the day. It always is on fight night. The challenger walks briskly towards the ring. His name is Squim. No one quite remembers how he came to get stuck with that moniker but it had a gimmicky ring to it so his coach and manager played it up.

He's not very big, you might even call him short. But he has desire, and focus and intensity. He's got a little box of matches and an aching desire to set the world on fire. His coach had told him, "You ain't got the size or the power but you've got a lot of heart. Let's see how far it takes you."

This bout is little noted by the boxing world and is expected to be a warm-up exercise for Squim's opponent. To Squim it's the biggest fight that ever was. He is here to walk among the giants. To slay the giants. To be the giant.

Squim was born and raised on the tough streets of a heatless town in a soulless country of this brutal world, but he's not looking for sympathy or excuses, he wants victory. He wants it. He needs it. He can taste it.

Suddenly he runs a few steps, bounces into the ring and does that curious little boxer's dance to the center of the ring where he delivers a blinding flurry of punches at the air in front of him.

"You ain't half the man I am!" he screams. He stops and looks around. Every eye in the building is on him now. They watch quietly, questioningly, expectantly.

Squim's eyes roam until they rests upon his opponent, who is watching him, now sneering at him, as he makes his way with cocky and irritating slowness towards the ring. Squim stares at him as he walks towards the edge of the canvas.

"Come and get it, asshole!" he thinks savagely. "Your dinner's ready, bitch!"

A tall and bent old man with a cane is standing near the ring. He's always there, he never misses a fight in this arena.

"You're a bum!" he yells up at Squim. "*I* could take you!"

Squim mouthes an obscenity down at the old man, who mouthes one back.

Squim rolls his head around, back and forth, and up and down, to keep the neck muscles loose. He walks towards his corner and again scans the crowd. All eyes are on him. That is as it should be. They are wondering, no doubt. Squim will explain things with his fists very soon.

He reaches his corner and lowers his head, with his eyes closed.

"They love me. Fucking right they love me."

http://fray.slate.com/?id=3936&m=16738063