Joe turned his bedroom into a training space by subtraction.
The bed was pushed hard against the wall, frame creaking once in protest before settling. The desk went sideways, chair stacked on top of it like an afterthought. What remained was a rectangle of bare carpet just wide enough to move in without striking anything solid. He taped a strip of paper to the mirror at eye level, a rough vertical line to stand in for an opponent's center.
It wasn't much, but it was contained.
Containment mattered.
He started in socks. Shoes felt wrong indoors, too loud, too present. The carpet gave slightly under his feet, absorbing force without returning it. He stood facing the mirror, shoulders squared, hands raised where he thought they should be.
The reflection stared back with uncomfortable clarity.
He adjusted immediately.
Chin down. Elbows in. Hands higher. No—lower. He tried again. His shoulders were too tense. He rolled them once, twice, then lifted his hands back into position, careful not to let the elbows flare.
The first jab came out sharp and straight.
It looked good.
Joe watched the line of it in the mirror—the extension of the arm, the slight turn of the shoulder, the snap at the end. He pulled it back quickly, resetting to guard. Again. And again. Each repetition nearly identical, the differences small enough to feel negligible.
He stepped laterally, left then right, dragging the back foot just enough to keep balance. The mirror showed clean angles, neat geometry. He checked his feet, adjusted the width of his stance by a fraction.
Again.
The room filled with the sound of breath and fabric shifting. His fists cut through still air, leaving no trace. He moved slowly at first, building sequences from fragments scavenged from memory.
He'd found the tapes in a charity shop two days earlier.
VHS. Old instructional recordings, covers faded, men frozen mid-punch with exaggerated expressions. He didn't care who they were. He cared how they stood. How their arms extended. How their feet aligned under them.
He watched them late into the night, pausing and rewinding, memorizing shapes. The punches themselves were secondary. It was the positions between them that held his attention—the moments of balance, the way bodies aligned when nothing was happening.
Posters came next. Glossy photos torn from magazines, taped beside the mirror. Boxers mid-action, sweat caught in motion, muscles defined by lighting rather than function. Joe studied them clinically, tracing imaginary lines through joints, noting angles.
He didn't try to feel what they felt.
He tried to look like what he saw.
In the mirror now, he worked through a routine he'd assembled himself.
Jab. Step out. Jab again. Slide right. Reset. Jab. Pivot. Hands back to guard.
He counted in his head, not to track time, but to impose order. Sets of ten. Sets of twenty. When he lost count, he started over.
His shoulders warmed. Then burned. His calves tightened, carpet grip forcing subtle compensations in his ankles. Sweat gathered at the base of his neck, dampening the collar of his shirt.
He ignored it.
The mirror demanded attention.
Each movement was immediately evaluated. Too slow. Too wide. Hand dropped on the return. He corrected instantly, sometimes mid-motion, freezing for half a second to adjust posture before continuing.
This wasn't training. It was calibration.
He widened his stance again, trying to replicate a still frame he'd seen the night before. The weight felt wrong, but the mirror approved. His silhouette looked closer to the reference image.
He stayed there.
Time passed unevenly.
At some point, his breathing grew louder. His arms started to lag on the return, muscles no longer snapping back cleanly. The jab still extended fully, but the retraction softened, the elbow trailing just enough to notice.
Joe noticed.
He slowed down, focusing on cleanliness rather than speed. Precision over power. He told himself that was correct. That was what worked before.
He imagined an opponent in the mirror—tall, indistinct, nothing more than the line of paper taped between his eyes. He threw the jab toward it repeatedly, stepping off to the side each time, careful not to cross his feet.
His feet crossed anyway.
He stopped, reset, tried again.
The carpet bunched slightly under his heel. He adjusted his angle to compensate. The movement looked fine in the mirror, but his legs felt disconnected, like they were operating on a slight delay.
He dismissed the sensation.
Feeling came later. Form came first.
The next day, he did it again.
Same room. Same mirror. Same routine, expanded slightly. He added more lateral movement, longer steps, reaching further with the jab. He watched himself constantly, eyes flicking between his hands and his feet, tracking alignment.
His arms were long. That part pleased him. The jab filled space easily, reaching the imaginary opponent before anything could come back.
It looked efficient.
He repeated the motion until his triceps ached. Then kept going.
There was no bell. No round timer. No external signal to stop. When exhaustion crept in, it did so quietly, manifesting as small imperfections. A heel lifting too early. A shoulder rising on extension. Breath hitching when it should have stayed smooth.
Joe responded by tightening control.
He shortened his movements, reduced range, focused on looking composed. Fatigue was something to be concealed, not addressed.
By the time he stopped, his shirt was soaked through and his forearms trembled faintly.
He stood still, chest rising and falling, eyes fixed on the mirror.
The reflection stared back, flushed, jaw clenched, hands still raised.
Joe lowered his arms.
The reflection followed.
He turned away and collapsed onto the edge of the bed, muscles buzzing with residual effort. There was no satisfaction. No sense of completion. Only the absence of instruction.
Later, he returned to the mirror anyway.
The days blurred together.
He trained in the mornings now, then again in the evenings. Short sessions layered over longer ones, none of them distinct enough to stand out. He changed small things constantly—stance width, hand height, rhythm—chasing a visual accuracy he couldn't quite pin down.
He borrowed movements from everywhere.
From the gym windows near the park, where he stood outside and watched men move between bags and rings. From reflections caught in shop glass as people shadowboxed absentmindedly while waiting for buses. From clips he paused on his laptop, squinting at pixelated motion.
Each new detail was incorporated immediately.
His style became a collage of references, stitched together by discipline rather than understanding. He moved smoothly, confidently, but without a center. Every sequence ended where it began, never resolving into anything else.
Exhaustion remained the only constant.
Without feedback, he pushed until his body forced him to stop. Muscles failed first, then coordination. His jab lost its snap. His feet dragged. The mirror showed flaws he could no longer correct.
On those days, he ended the session abruptly, annoyed more by the visible decline than the fatigue itself.
One evening, he trained in near darkness, a single lamp casting harsh shadows across the mirror. The effect pleased him. The angles looked dramatic, his movements sharper against the contrast.
He shadowboxed slowly, deliberately, each motion exaggerated just enough to register clearly. Jab extended, shoulder rolled, head slipped off the center line. Step left. Step right. Reset.
His breathing echoed in the room.
He watched himself with narrowed focus, mentally comparing the image to the posters on the wall. The resemblance was closer now. The shape of his stance, the line of his arms—it all aligned better.
Still, something was missing.
He jabbed harder, snapping the arm out with more intent. The mirror responded with speed but no resistance. His shoulder complained, a dull ache spreading toward the neck. He ignored it and kept moving.
Sweat dripped onto the carpet.
He felt hollowed out by the end of the session, limbs heavy, lungs burning. When he finally stopped, it was because his legs refused another step.
He stood in place, hands dropping to his sides.
The reflection did not stop immediately.
For a fraction of a second, it completed the last movement—a delayed return of the jab, a subtle shift of weight—before settling into stillness.
Joe frowned, unsettled.
He stared at himself, breathing hard, chest rising and falling out of sync with the image he'd been chasing. The room felt smaller now, the mirror less cooperative.
Imitation, he realized—not as a conclusion, but as a sensation—carried no weight.
He turned away, leaving the reflection behind, still poised in a shape that meant nothing without something to push back.