They call me the champion, and that's supposed to stand for something. I see it reflected in the kids' eyes as I walk by. Grown men foam at the mouth, demanding I knock out the young challenger waiting for me at my destination. A challenger who will either liberate me of my title or become another tally, another footnote in my legacy.

I see the silhouette pacing in the ring like an apex predator, waiting to pounce on its prey. Those fiery eyes that burn from an insatiable hunger, stalking me. A hunger that once haunted myself, but has long been satiated. With every victory, I become more full. Sometimes I feel so full I could burst. Yet, here I am again, staring at another stranger with intent to harm me. I stare back, my gaze steady and unfeeling, smothering those flames with my own tempered coals.

What no one tells you is how empty being the champion is. You dedicate hours, days, weeks, months, and years with a singular focus... And once you have achieved it, what then? What happens once the afterglow of clenching that belt in your hands wears off? Titles, trophies, purses—they pile up around me, shiny but lighter with every addition. Each time I set foot into the ring, I have a little less something to prove. Each shuffle, block, jab, and hook becomes a little bit more mechanical. Until I am nothing more than a flesh-and-blood robot, repeating the task I was engineered to perform. I wonder if the last champion felt this way, watching the hunger in my eyes and feeling his own fire fade.

It's not their fault. No one could have told me. I wouldn't have listened. And if I had, would it even have been possible to make it this far? No; no, probably not. Thus I'll continue to perform my dance so long as master money, power, and fame continue to pull the strings.

How long will this last? How long can I keep this up? How many more fights before someone’s hungrier, before I’m just a little weaker, a fraction slower? Will my decline be gradual, or will it strike me down swiftly? Could it be today? Will I miss it once it's gone? Will I have the desire to get it back?

...Eight. Nine. Ten. The roar of the crowd drowns out my thoughts, dragging me back to my senses as the ropes, the poles, and the mat sharpen back into focus. The stench of sweat and blood permeates the air. The referee reaches for my gloved hand, soggy and swollen. Not today... But someday.

I clear the fresh shower from the mirror, greeted by a haunting mask of wrinkles and spots. If I hadn’t seen it every day, I wouldn’t even recognize it. Ears, nose, chin – they’ve become grotesque caricatures of themselves, exaggerated and strange. Wrinkles cut into the skin, pathways carved by time, like water lacerating the earth over centuries. Only those familiar eyes stare back, wide and panicked, like a ghost possessing this hulk of flesh and bones.

Frankly, it sends shivers down my spine every time I lock eyes. How did this happen? No… “When” is the more appropriate question.

I run a wayward hand across my flesh. Look at this abdomen – distended and stretched, as though I’d swallowed something I can’t digest. Arms draped in a tapestry of loose, sagging flesh, a stark reminder of time’s cruelty. I was attractive once, wasn’t I? Focusing on the reflection of youth in my mind’s eye, the stark juxtaposition reveals how blind I was to what I had. And now, looking back, perhaps my ignorance was my real life’s crime.

Unintentionally my eyes relax their focus and the mirror becomes more transparent, as if it were about to reveal something hidden within. In an instant a mirage of the person I once was projects across the silver screen of my mind, like an old film reel, flickering with moments past. Their edges are hazy and indistinct, replaying fleeting fragments of a life I was too unaware to cherish.

It was many years ago, and the sun enveloped my unblemished skin in warm kisses. The wind wove its fingers through my hair, playful and free. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was painless, strong, and unburdened – Too preoccupied to realize how evanescent such moments would be.

I caught my reflection in a shop window as I walked past, the silhouette of youth, a face alive with possibility. The glass threw back an image of someone I barely recognize now: confident in ways I didn’t understand, and carefree in ways I never acknowledged back then.

But even in that moment, I didn’t linger. I averted my eyes, dismissing the fleeting thought that I might be attractive. I didn’t believe it, couldn’t let myself believe it. “How vain,” I told myself, reflexively listing the traits I disliked about myself. Traits I now long to see restored in my reflection. Back then, I would walk on, leaving the reflection behind like it meant nothing.

The memory becomes cloudy, like a pebble thrown into a pond turning the water from translucent to opaque. As the ripples settle, this haunting guise of my current reflection reclaims my vision, its features hollow and worn.

I force a smile, but the reflection twists it into something hideous. Jowls pull at the corners to reveal crooked teeth that dispel any illusion of pleasantry. This face – how could anyone find comfort in it? It’s not a smile; it’s a warning. A grim omen of what awaits us all. A smile hung on a face that is a shadow of what once was. The mirror reveals only the surface, but the deeper truth lies in every ache, every fleeting moment of youth, that shepherds me to my absoluteness.

My fingers creak and stretch before my eyes, stiff from overuse, gnarled and twisted by time. My eyes flicker back to the image in the mirror, that somehow familiar yet foreign phantom leering back, a stranger in my own skin. My hand falls limply back to its hanging place, weighted with indignation. It’s not just this reflection that torments me, it’s the knowledge that no effort, no intervention, could ever erase the relentless mark of time. No fitness routine, no surgery, no pharmaceutical or cosmetic intervention could ever cover up this menacing figure… let alone break the curse that binds me, forever the beast, never the beauty.

That all too familiar pressure sinks in, as if an unseen force were trying to pull that part of my stomach below my navel to the floor. A herculean weight that would cause even Atlas to stumble. Unseen fingertips claw at my heart. It is unbearable… and yet all I can do is bear it, knowing that this ghastly reflection awaits me tomorrow. And if I am fortunate, the day after… and after. Fortunate to relive this unending torment until… Until I discover peace, either in the quiet of my mind or in the stillness of the earth.