Once a month, we stop practicing and invite you to show off your best work.
Are you interested in being published (in print)? Would you like to get better at the writing craft by working with an editor? Do you enjoy a little friendly competition? And are you a fan of The Write Practice?
Then this writing contest might be for you.
Show Off Your Best Work
Here’s how this writing competition works.
You will submit a longer piece, between 500 and 1250 words, based around this month’s theme: Competitive Athletics. You can submit as many pieces as you want. After one week, on Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST, submissions will close, and we will choose a winner.
Here’s the exciting part. If your piece is chosen, I will work with you on making it the best it can be. We’ll work on making your images shine, your prose sparkle, your dialogue sing, and your grammar… not suck.
Then, at the end of the month, we’ll publish it on the Write Practice where hundreds of people will get to read you at your very best. For example, read last month’s winner, Bob Vander Lugt's If I Had a Hammer.
It gets better though.
We’re going to do this every month for the next year, and in December 2012, we plan to collect all twelve of these pieces and publish them in a book. Real paper, real cover, real ink. So if your piece is chosen, you will be able to consider yourself a published author.
Ready to start?
SHOW OFF: RULES
The Theme: Competitive athletics.
In honor of the 2012 Olympics, write a story that involving athletes competing at swimming, basketball, table tennis, synchronized swimming, or some other sport.
Guidelines
- It should be a finished work. A complete story.
- Non-fictional and fictional pieces are both accepted.
- We will accept pieces between 500‑1250 words. We will read every word, so please, nothing over 1250 words.
- You can post your completed piece in the comments of this post. You can post as many times as you want!
- Please, nothing too graphic or explicitly sexual.
- The deadline is Wednesday, August 8 at 11:59 pm EST to post your piece. That’s a week, but start today!
And, of course, if you submit your work, you agree to give us first publishing rights (meaning that after we publish it, the rights revert back to you).
Best of luck!
Great idea Joe … I hope to have something before the week’s out.
Game on.
Oh my word! Crickets fill the silence in my brain. Writing anything worth reading on this subject would certainly be miraculous for me! We’ll see if my creative juices rise to the challenge!
Beck … Write about trying to understand cricket… I can’t. But then, I don’t get baseball either.
athletics… like track and field? or just anything about sports?
Track, field, baseball, soccer (i.e. football), football (i.e. American football), badminton, diving, equestrian, archery, snowboarding, and everything in between. 🙂
Did you know that back in the day the arts featured in the Olympics? There were medals for poetry and etching!!!! It all stopped because the Baron de Coubertin thought artists were professionals! I would love to go to the poetry finals!!!
No way. That’s incredible. I had no idea. I wonder how they judged that! Especially with multiple languages?
It doesn’t have to be an olympic sport?
Does the story have to exclusively be about sports? Or can it also deal with another theme (ie love, hate, medical conditions)?
Hi Sierra!
The theme doesn’t have to be sports. Love, hate, or death are welcome alternatives. However, it should involve sports in some way.
Looking forward to reading your story!
Where do i post my completed work. Its about wrestling
Indrajeet, post it in the same place you posted your question. In this comment section.
Here’s my attempt. I ended up combining the exercise on writing about ghosts with this. The character of “Ben” was based on a childhood friend of mine. Hope someone likes it. Any feedback at all would be much appreciated!
Bull’s Eye
Joe took his place at the edge of the motionless pool. Nervous energy was swelling, waiting to be put to use. He took in the familiar smell of chlorine in slow, deep breaths. The heat on his face hinted that his body temperature was rising. He would be swimming in the outer, right lane. He considered it an advantage that there would be no competition on one side of him. A stranger waited in front of the lane next to his. He was poised and ready for the buzzer to sound. In the few short seconds before the race, his mind traveled back in time to their first competitive swim meet.
It took place at this very pool. They were just eight years old and full of nervous excitement. They swam side by side; Ben had placed first and Joe a close second. Setting the pattern that would be the subject of countless friendly feuds. They were so pumped they simultaneously jumped up from the water, reached over the rope and emphatically slapped their small hands together in a congratulatory high-5. This would become a tradition for the two comrades following any and all shared swimming events that meant something.
The buzzer sounded and Joe projected his body into the water with impressive power and grace leaving behind hardly any evidence that he had just entered it. He successfully forced Ben out of his thoughts for the time being. He focused on nothing but envisioning himself as a sleek missile traveling swiftly through the water, frictionless, with laser-like focus. He found his rhythm quickly and remained in a steady pattern of commanding strokes. Joe and Ben had pushed each other to their limits in the water for years. They had both been the kind of athlete that people enjoyed observing as they practiced their craft, impressively in control and seemingly without effort.
Halfway through the 400 m race on his 8th lap, Joe fell back slightly from the lead after Ben forced his way back into his conscious mind disrupting his missile vision. Joe cursed him for distracting him during such a pivotal race. And for not being by his side. He shook his head as he came up for air and regained his focus. He chanted “missile” silently to himself over and over for the next several laps. Joe reclaimed his leading position just before his final flip turn. As his muscular legs recoiled and sprang him towards the future, he decided he was going to take first place for Ben since he wasn’t there to do it himself.
About a quarter of the way down his lane, Joe saw a dark mass at the other end. He didn’t have time to make sense of it. He kept swimming towards it as if it were the matching bull’s eye to his missile. The blurry edges sharpened as it came into focus. Joe startled at what was waiting for him. Ben was in the water. Solid and waiting patiently at the far wall where the race would quickly finish. Joe could feel the tension of the final push that each swimmer was putting forth with their last bursts of adrenaline. He thought he must be pushing himself too hard. That he had stressed his body to the point of hallucination. Ben wore an unusual look of peace on his instantly likable face. He was smiling with that old familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. Their vibrant blue color clearly visible even under the bustling water. Their unique shade of blue had been striking; one of the most talked about memories on his Facebook page, which tragically had turned into a virtual memorial. Joe hadn’t seen him like this since their sophomore year. It was the old Ben. The Ben that was so easy to be with. The one that Joe had always thought of as his brother from another mother. The brother he never had, who had been a continual fixture in his life since they first met here at this pool 10 years ago; that is until he changed last year.
Joe’s nose burned as he felt the mechanism in his eyes kick start and begin to produce tears. Salt mingled with chlorine and now his eyes also burned. It was the first time he cried since he learned of his friend’s selfish decision. Ben was holding his hand up, still smiling, expectantly waiting for a high-5 from his buddy. Blood pumped through Joe’s heart even harder now with desire. Desire, no longer to be first but to connect one last time. Ears now throbbing to the beat of his pulse, his burning lungs told his brain he was running dangerously low on oxygen. He didn’t dare go up for air for fear Ben would leave him again. His muscles put forth a spectacular display of sheer will, ripping his muscular form through the liquid barrier. He wanted to ask him “why?” How could he? Why wouldn’t he let Joe help him? Didn’t he care they were supposed to have each other’s backs for life? He was inches away now. What he wanted most in this moment, though, was to reach Ben’s hand before it faded away. Pressure was building behind his eyes, tiny bursts of light originating from behind them, he had only seconds of consciousness left. Joe reached out wide-eyed. At the last second Ben lifted his hand up out of the water. Joe followed his lead and slapped his hand on the wall. The buzzer sounded and Joe came up for life-giving air.
He did it. He got his high-5. He also swam the fastest time of his career leading his closest follower by 4 full seconds. Ben had had his back after all. They both had known the results of this competition would decide where they went to college. It was the topic of their last sober conversation. Joe stood bent over on the cement near the settling water, hands on knees, chest heaving to replenish his blood oxygen and sobbing simultaneously. He would be going to Auburn University. He stayed there for some time heaving, tasting salt and smiling at the thought of Ben accompanying him in the fall after all.
Very good! I could picture the race quite vividly!
Thank you, Mirel! I’m glad you were able to picture it! That is a great compliment 🙂
Nice work Bonnie! The paragraph that begins 1/4 way down the lane is great. I think that might be a really nice opening.
Thank you! I will try to rework it using that as the opening!
You had me excited about who was in the water, so you did your job to create the picture for me. But from listening to my friend who is a new published writer, she said she had to throw out a lot of detailed writing to get to the meat of the story. Her publicist stated that people don’t need to visualize so much these days like they did so many years ago. I like your story plot, stick with it, it’s a keeper 🙂 Thanks for letting me read it!
Thanks for the great advice!
Here’s my entry for the writing of Athletic competition:
AN ORDINARY ATHLETE Standing at the back of the gym, the young woman with her brown hair pulled back into a pony tail seemed to be bored or just daydreaming. Her grey leggings and white tee shirt proclaiming, “Girls Rule” in bright pink, seemed out of place where most of the group wore Nike or Adidas wear. She was not part of any of the groups that were here to audition for a coveted spot on the Virginia State team. Maybe it was because of her nonchalance and self containment that many noted her arrival and secretly sneered at her for exhibiting such a posture. After all, this tryout was going to be a team effort and she seemed to be a loner, not someone who would have the give and take of a group effort to win in this sport of volleyball. The players were called out and placed randomly in a team of ten, later to be winnowed to six players. Each group would be playing against another selected group. After all the chaos in the placement, the games began. Rachel Steiner did not expect to be placed on a team, nor did she expect to be selected for the position she wanted to play which was center, the position every girl eyed with envy. Her interest in this sport was due to her instructor at high school. He told her to continue competing while in college and maybe they’d offer her a scholarship. It hadn’t worked out that way, but she was supporting herself through college with a student loan along with a part time job to pay for her books. As she signed up, the registrar tried to engage Rachel in conversation. “How’s it going?” she first asked. That was a no brainer. “Good as could be expected,” replied Rachel. She read the name tag of the young woman at the table, “Marie, could you do me a favor and put me on a team with some decent players.” Marie frowned, “Can’t do that. We just put you where the computer says. Here you go. You’re on Team D.” Rachel winced as she felt that the team probably had the equivalent of the actual grade given for any test score. “At least it’s not Team F,” Rachel sarcastically replied. “You might see if you know any of the gals on the team and maybe it’ll make you feel better about the placement,” advised Marie. “Here’s your ID badge. Keep it on all the time you’re out on the courts. Thanks for showing up. Next up,” she called to the person behind Rachel. There were five teams by the time all the assignments were made and the first match started within the next hour. Practice was already going between the teams. Rachel was placed in a position she did not prefer. It was rough going at first but after the warm-ups, Rachel felt the competition charge her every move. By the time the first game was over, many of the girls gave her an envious look. The coach who was checking out each contestant, paused as he watch Rachel serve with a sizzling spin on the volleyball. “Wow,” he told his assistant, this gal has some power punch. Keep an eye on her. Let me know who she is.” After the afternoon of selections for the team to represent the college, Rachel’s name was posted as surviving the cut. She was elated but then humbled. Hastily, she went to the locker room and sobbed her relief. Marie had followed Rachel’s progress and saw her leave for the locker room. She saw Rachel breakdown. “Are you all right?” She asked. “You should be happy to be part of this great team,” Marie concluded. Rachel looked up with her tears streaming down, “You don’t understand, I was like a nobody but then I was coached by my P.E. teacher. He taught me all the basics of volleyball and what to expect and how to hit hard. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today.” Rachel wiped her eyes and then continued. “You see, I just found out today that he died from cancer last week. He told me at our last visit when he was in the hospital that he would be with me even if he couldn’t make it to my competition,” sniffled Rachel. “He promised me that if I just focused on the ball, on the actions of the opposing players and play to another audience, I could pull this off. Guess he was right, ‘cause all I thought about was the shining face of Coach Riggs pleasing him so I forget about myself.” Marie patted Rachel on the back in a reassuring manner. “You did the right thing and it paid off. Come on and celebrate with the selected team. No more tears, the coach would want you to enjoy your victory.”
Rachel continued to sob, saying, “I just thought I saw him in the bleachers while I was going onto the court. It was just what I needed to get my courage up and remember what he told me. If he hadn’t have been there, I would have fallen apart from all the stress.” Marie stared at Rachel and then smiled. “I guess you could say he took a short trip here to give you the confidence you needed. God always meets our needs when we are at the end of ourselves. Go on, just cry a bit more and then join us for your first team appearance.” Rachel composed herself, “Thanks for talking with me. I’m only an ordinary athlete and the fact that Coach Riggs was in the stands showed me that if I set my goals and sights on pleasing God, all things can be possible, even becoming a member of this elite team.” Rachel dried her tears and got up to join Marie for the upcoming introduction as a member of the college volleyball team. “Thanks Coach Riggs,” Rachel softly said as she collected her gym bag and joined Marie.
Hi Kathy, I think this is another story with a lot of potential. I really like the idea of the coach helping Rachel through the trials. I would also love to hear this story as-it-happened, told from Rachel’s point of view, so I could feel her immediate reaction to seeing her coach in the stands.
This is funny, my finished story is on the same subject of competition and missing loved ones. I guess we were all affected by the previous ghost prompt…
Here Goes:
Vanilla Passion
Bobby idly turned back for one last look around the kitchen
from the open door. He noticed the stack
of dishes piled unloved in the kitchen sink and his schoolbooks scattered
haphazardly on the table, but shrugged it off.
Not much chance that he would be scolded for it now. His glance lingered for a moment at the
pantry door, but it remained shut.
“I thought you said you’d always be here for me,” he muttered
to himself as he slowly let himself out the backdoor.
As he slowly shuffled to the baseball field, he could see
some of his teammates walking to the field with their parents. He could hear snatches of conversations and
sudden bursts of laughter as people passed by.
He kept his head down, trying to avoid their eyes. He did not want to risk seeing their apathy,
or even worse , their pity.
When he reached the dugout he seated himself on the
bench. Once, he would have been busy
scanning the bleachers, but he had no one to look for now. His dad was always busy nowadays, trying to
make a dent in the mountains of bills that always seem to follow serious
illness. And his mom? Who knew where she was nowadays. She certainly wasn’t here for him anymore.
Once he had enjoyed the game. But then, once his mom used to come with him
to every game. He would sometimes be embarrassed
by her exuberance, but it had added to the excitement. And he had always loved having her in the
bleachers wildly cheering for him. His
Dad would also come as often as he could to enjoy both his son’s efforts and
his wife’s contagious enthusiasm. Bobby
would step up to bat feeling their love and approval behind him, adding force
to his swing.
Now it was just him.
Alone. No added force. Just plain Bobby Davenport.
He could hear the chatter of his teammates in the
dugout. Most of them avoided him
now. At first, they had tried to show
their awkward sympathy, but after several fierce rebuffs, they had learned to
leave him alone. Coach too had offered
up some half-hearted words for him, but he didn’t know how to deal with the
situation either. Bobby sat hunched over
in the dugout his thoughts flowing around all his troubles as his hands
mechanically swirled his bat in the dust between his feet.
“Hey, watch it!”
Bobby snarled as Ross barreled into him, throwing him forward onto his
bat. The bat dug into the earth and
skittered out of his hands.
“Retard!”
Ross muttered.
“Ass hole, ”
Bobby muttered back behind clenched teeth.
Bobby glared after him as he bent down to pick up his bat. It was the sudden gleam that distracted him
and captured his attention. Bright
copper, just the color of his mother’s pre-cancerous hair. He crunched down to pull it out, finding a
shiny penny in his hand. Suddenly, he
caught a faint smell. Was that Vanilla
Passion? He lifted his head to glance
around, suddenly confused. It had been
his mother’s favorite scent. Did she
make it after all? But no. It
couldn’t be. She wasn’t there. She couldn’t be.
As he pocketed the penny, a faint smile played around his
lips. He remembered how his mother had
always told him that vanilla was the smell of home. How it always brought back memories of baking
cookies with her mom as a child. Happy
memories. For her last birthday, he had saved his money and
bought her more of her favorite Vanilla
Passion, her signature perfume and body cream.
She had clasped the bottle and tube to her, her eyes glistening. Then
she had dropped them and hugged him to her.
“I love you, Bobby boy,” she had whispered. “Don’t you ever forget that. Whatever happens, I’ll always be there for you. You remember that.” He knew that his mom had held him tight a bit
longer so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, the tears he heard so clearly in
her voice. And then she had let go of him and laughingly squirted
them both with her perfume.
Once again he looked around, searching. He could still smell her distinct aroma, but where
could she be? As he glanced around he took in the game for
the first time. The situation wasn’t
good. It would soon be him up at bat.
He’d barely noticed the passing innings till now, or his unimpressive
turns at bat. But that smell. It woke him up. For the first time in a long time, he really noticed his team mates: on base, anxious to score, anxious to win for
a change. The
scent of vanilla was out still out there.
But maybe it had been out there all year, masked by his despondency and
anger, blocked by his fear.
Bobby heard his name being called. He grabbed his bat and
headed out to the batter’s box, his face screwed in concentration still
pondering the scent. “Stand tall,
Bobby boy, give it your best!” It
was his mother’s voice in his ear. He
straightened his shoulders and walked tall to take his turn at bat. He still didn’t see her, but maybe he’d been
looking in all the wrong places. He
stood tall, gripped his bat and waited for the pitch. “This one’s for you, Mom, ” he
whispered.
And as wood met leather, once again Bobby Davenport could feel
love and approval adding force to his swing, adding passion, Vanilla Passion.
Great title and descriptive writing. There are a couple places I’d re-word some phrases, but I love the diction and style here.
Thanks! Can I ask which places you think need work? I’m all for constructive criticism to improve my work.
I Ran with the Late Great Jimmy Saville
Heart pumping, adrenalin rushing, face as red as a beetroot, I was not a pretty sight as I ran along the crowded street. My dishevelled self had run just less than half the London marathon and still had another 13 and-a-bit miles to go. A dicky tummy – blamed on the pasta party the previous evening – had made my progress slower than I wanted. Occasional pitstops took up time and energy and I was very nearly on the verge of giving up.
As I gritted my teeth and kept putting one foot in front of the other, I remembered my first marathon some years earlier. Insufficient training meant that I hit the wall very badly at 20 miles. This being in Dublin, my home town, it was an easy matter to stop – I knew the short way back to the finish line where I was to meet up with fellow runners.
By the time I got to London, I had two finishes under my belt. Both under four hours. For London, everything else in life – including two small children – took a back seat. No matter what the weather was like, I was out there. I had a schedule and I was sticking to it. If this meant running 10 miles in a blizzard, well, it had to be done. Beating 3½ hours was the goal for this marathon.
This is what kept me going as I leaned over the barrier at the side of the road to be sick. How could I give up in London? First of all, I hadn’t a clue where I was or how to get back to Westminister Bridge, the finish line. Secondly, how could I go back home, tail between my legs and say I gave up? Unthinkable. But much more importantly, I wanted that gold medal. I was not going to let all those months of hard training be wasted by a bit of dodgy pasta.
So I slogged on. I knew halfway was Tower Bridge, not that far away.
Though the discouraging fact here was that you could see the the elite runners and the potential winners underneath as they ran along beside the river. They were just a few miles from the finish while we still had a lot of pounding to do.
The paths were crowded with spectators. This was only the fourth running of the marathon and it was still very much a novelty. In fact, this kind of mass marathon was still in the infancy stage, with sane, rational people thinking you were off your head to want to run 26 miles. And a bit. So the paths were about 10 deep in some places with roars of encouragement coming from all sides. We’d already had the Pearly Kings and Queens cheering us on and any number of bands belting out rousing songs. And the encouragement as we rounded the Cutty Sark was fantastic.
So there was plenty of distraction as I struggled on, feeling as if I’d been turned inside out. It wasn’t just being physically sick; I was sick with disappointment as the mile markers passed and I knew there was no way I was going to break that 3½ hour barrier.
I could hear huge cheers in front of me, coupled with great excitement. What was going on? Some celebrity running? At first I didn’t realise who it was. All I could see were some large bodyguard types surrounding a small figure. Curiousity getting the better of wisdom I increased my pace until I was up beside them. I caught a flash of gold lamé and then saw the long flyaway platinum-blonde hair.
Yes, it was none other than the (in)famous Jimmy Saville. My all-time favourite Top Of The Pops presenter. And the man who ‘fixed-it’ for so many children over the years with his show ‘Jim’ll Fix It’. I could see him talking away and thought ‘lucky old him, able to run and talk at the same time.’ It was only afterwards that I was told he was doing a radio programme while running!
I also remembered when he came to Dublin, many years earlier, to do a charity walk. Twenty miles, a few thousand walkers and a great day out. Now here I was, probably some 20 years later, running alongside him in the London Marathon.
I ran a couple of miles as close to him as the bodyguards would allow, but eventually, as another bout of sickness came over me, I had to let him go ahead.
But it cheered me up. And when I heard last year that he had died, I remembered that day, May 13, 1984, when I ran with him.
(By the way – I finally finished in 3 hours 38 minutes)
Good for you! Strong writing too!
Replying to Mirelba, Suzie and Brian – sorry for delay in getting back to you all. Too busy here watching Ireland’s Katie Taylor getting through the rounds and finally winning an Olympic Gold in boxing. Gold medals in any Olympic sport are very hard to come by for us Irish! Thanks you for your kind comments.
Yea, an Irish coleen!!! Well done on finishing a marathon and all the other achievements in this. Nice writing too, Jeanne
Very nicely done. I always like a good “brush with fame” story. And it’s a good read besides that aspect of it.
“What do I do?” said Ravi, shaking his head in disgust.”Even,
beating his ass up did not work. When he was a child he was too adorable. But
now nothing seems like working.” continued Ravi. Then he had another peg
of country made and said in somewhat lowered voice, “I wish he never had grown
up”. Ravi never wanted to see his son grow into the ‘Professional without
brain’ – that’s what people India think of Wrestlers. He had his doubts as all Indian
parents do – he wanted his son to get educated, to become a good serviceman – not
much of a visionary but a protective Indian father.
For Sunny, Ravi’s son,
wrestling meant life. His ancestors had left behind hereditary estate worth
millions of rupees. What drove him crazy the very fact that everyone made fun
of his physique. He could have cared less of it but for the one day.
As usual Sunny was giving shower to the cattle and suddenly
he felt something biting his thigh. He turned around to see what happened and
suddenly went to ground as he was hit hard in face. It was Ram his elder
brother with bullock cart driving hunter. Ram was on the mark again and this
time kicking Sunny. At one moment he could not understand what was all this for
but the next moment he gathered his breath kicked back. He stood up caressed
his thigh as it was a mosquito bite. He was in no mood to do the remaining work
and left for home where he learnt the reason of him getting beaten up. It was
on his dad’s say that Sunny should no longer pursue wrestling of which he was
given ultimatum a year ago, “You must score about 80% and go to the MG College”,
as he was entering his final year of high school graduation.
The very fact that there is no career as such a Wrestler – which
most of the Indians think reality is. What level of success he’d achieve? No
more than playing in competitions held in fares in nearby village. Mom made her
point when she said, “I want every other woman to be jealous of me, when I
bring home my daughter in law”, and no one was to marry a wrestler, at least not
beautiful girls.
Despite whatever happened at home and at school – where he
was a bright student and good son – he would regularly practice Kushti(Wrestling). He was so
concentrated and always ready to learn new tactics. He had mastered moves that
only professionals could do and that too at the age of high school graduate.
His moves were very mature and normally surprised his opponents. His physique
accounted for his profession as a wrestler. In India wrestlers are assumed to
be towering persons in height as well as weight. His idle was two times Hind Kesari (Indian Wrestler of the
year) Mr. Mane. He brought his body in shape with the help of coaches (known as
Ustaads) of Aakharha(wrestling ring made of red soil).
He started wrestling in the inter-village competitions, but
he had to play against boys with older than him because competitors were
grouped according to their weights. He lacked that edge of experience and would
always get defeated in earlier rounds but not without putting his heart out. All
the coaches from different villages would come to him and praise him but he’d
get furious for not winning. His first real chance came when he participated in
district level school wrestling competitions and there he was flawless. Most of
the times outmuscling the smaller opponents and as he emerged undisputed
champion. There he came to know of the 5% bonus marks given to the National
School Wrestling Competition semi finalists.
These days his mind
chanted only one mantra ‘National School Wrestling Competition’ as that would
lift some pressure on his academics and could make his name as a Wrestler.
Extra marks would support his cause of admission to MG College. He started
preparations rigorously, working in the morning and evening, before and after
the school. School did not permit to practice in the school time and warned him
of failure in academics. He dominated every other wrestler in village, at times
he showed his coaches what he was made of. Then he started practiced with
defensive tactic. Wrestlers from other villages were invited to practice with
him and at State level he did not have a match.
After State level School Wrestling competition triumph, his
school started somewhat supporting him but warning him to be cautious of
academics. He again did the homework as much as he could do. But there was a
problem, at the National level he had to play with weight groups and not the
age or school standard groups- the same old problem. Every state employing
different strategy, his was the one employing opposite to that of national
level competition. To his credit he did awesome. He attracted most of the
people’s attention. Coaches at the national level offered him coaching. He was
star of the competition and future Khashaba
Jadhav(Won bronze for India at Olympics) of India. He made it up to the
quarterfinals of the competition from top 100 wrestlers of India. He lost quarterfinals.
Everyone was happy including his family, coaches, even school
authorities that he made it to the top eight of such prestigious competition.
But he had this feeling of having lost everything; he couldn’t take the defeat
well – He was taught to win. The day before his match, results of his high
school graduation were announced. He had done well but was well short of the
cut-off marks. He desperately needed to enter semis to win those bonus 5% marks.
If he had entered semis he was eligible for grace marks. On both fronts he fell
short, in short he LOST. The praise and all the talks did not matter to him,
all that knew, he was nowhere, ‘neither best in the country nor going to the
best College in his area’. He went home amidst the speculations that he was
next Olympic star of India. But he was too young to understand these things. On
his way back he had made his mind to be good son as his father had dreamt of, not
to hit back the elder brother and make his mother feel proud of him. As usual
coaches did not try to persuade him because he was as stubborn as mountain. And
for his family it was homecoming of their lost child.
He re-enrolled in high school and graduated with good marks
and completed his education from best college. He then went on to fulfill his family’
dreams. But, for India – the country where children go to Aakharha even before they learn to hold the cricket bat, the
country which has seen wrestlers like Dara Singh – one dream still remains –
Olympics Gold Medal.
.
Hi Indrajeet, I really enjoyed this story, which feels like a fable and is well-paced. With some careful copyediting, it has a lot of potential. Well done.
gud work!! keep it up.
its nice to see you writing on theme other than love…good work!!!
“Nervous?”
I looked up from my stretches at Derek.
“What?”
I shook my head.
“Either that means you’re really nervous – or it means of course you’re not nervous.”
I didn’t say anything but switched legs and
continued stretching. Carla, my coach, looked up from the paperwork she was
finishing and clicked her pen.
So maybe it was my first Olympic participation. Maybe I had only recently
qualified – and even that almost randomly and very unexpected. But I was an
athlete, a national champion. It was in my blood so I knew what I was doing.
Derek, my new boyfriend, didn’t know too much about my world yet.
Carla looked at her watch and got up, saying,
“Visiting hour’s over. Marty needs to start preparing for tomorrow.”
“I thought she’s been preparing all her
life,” said Derek, smiling though. He got up too and held out his hand for me
to reach and he pulled me to my feet – as if I needed help.
“You know, inwardly?” Carla pointed to her head. “It’s all about
concentration.”
“Am I that distracting?” He had pulled me
close and laughed into my ear. I pushed him away playfully but took his hand
and said, “Come, I’ll take you to the door.”
When we were out in the hall, Derek stated,
“I feel like you’re in some kind of hospital with all these visiting hours. I
don’t know what made me think coming here would be a sort of vacation.”
“I don’t know what made you think that
either,” I replied and laughed.
It was dark and cool outside. I could hear
the traffic on the nearby street and in the distance a group of people were also
laughing and talking.
“But I’m glad you did come,” I finally continued.
“It means a lot… to me. Especially after what happened – what has happened… It’s good that you’re
here.”
We stood face to face and Derek took my
other hand into his.
“I’m proud of you, Marty – for… many
reasons,” murmured Derek. “And I love you.”
I stood on the tips of my toes and kissed
him. “Wish me luck,” I added on a lighter note.
“Good luck, Marty.” Derek held my head and
kissed me once more. Finally, he dropped his hands and his charming grin
returned. “Now you better start getting ‘concentrated’,” he mimicked Carla’s
voice. “And this whole ‘inwardly’ thingy,” he twirled his finger about his
head.
I laughed as he zipped his coat and stepped
down the first step to leave. “I will see you
tomorrow. Maybe I’ll find a good place for us to eat for when after this drama is over.”
“You do that,” I called to him as he trotted
down the stairs. “Good night!”
He looked back, “Good night, Marty.”
I waved and then started back to Carla, who
was waiting impatiently in the hall.
It was exactly midnight when I looked at
the red digits on my alarm clock as I snuggled into my blankets. Midnight –
that meant it was a new day. It was the day I would start the performance of my
life. It was the day – I stopped short. It was that day, the day that marred my life forever. It had been exactly
one year since I realized things could never be the same again.
I felt how Carla’s soothing yet motivating
pep and prep talk suddenly lost its “Wirkung”. How could I have forgotten what
day it was? Or why did I have to have remembered that terrible day?
I did fall asleep, but rest that night was
filled with anxiety and memories, flashbacks and terror. I woke up feeling
anything but inwardly concentrated.
We were half way into a quite disastrous morning
practice when an official supervising the practice hours came to me with an
envelope in his hand.
“A young man insisted on me delivering this
to you, Miss Fern,” he said with a heavy English accent.
I made sure Carla wasn’t looking when I
accepted it and turned to open it.
The paper was a creamy white and written
with the kind of print boys use when they are making an effort to look neat. I
read,
Dearest
Marty,
Hope – darkened, tattered, broken, lost
Dreams – shaken, flouted, crossed
And still to her, “At spes
non fracta”
Hope – defiled, helpless, crying, gone
Dreams – frightened, weakened, none
And still to her, “At spes
non fracta”
Hope – revived, active, working, fight
Dreams – alive, blooming, light
And still to her, “At spes
non fracta.”
No
matter what ever happens to you, I know that you will never give up and never
lose hope or your dreams. It’s not about thinking back but looking ahead. It’s
not about fear but about courage. It’s not what they have done but what you
will do.
Love,
Derek
P.S.
I don’t know about you but I sucked at Latin. So
“At spes non fracta” means “Hope is not
yet shattered.”
Anyway,
I hope this letter can help you with your inward preparation J for today’s first round. I’ll be there.
I looked up, smiling. I could feel all the
worry and doubt escape my mind as I let out a deep breath. I folded the paper
and zipped it into my coat pocket.
It was going to be a good day.
all identities exist except Purple Street and Fay, it is a bit trite and twee:
Career & Courier
Fay De Pidese was couriering a letter from Purple Street
Congregational Chapel to an office on Regent Street, in Cunard House when she
collided with another bike.
“What the ?”
“Hey goggle eyes look where you’re goin’ ye t’ick one!”
The man’s piercing Irish blue eyes sparked flashes of
affected disinterest towards Fay.
“Hey, I know you, you’re the writer, the cyclist, the one.”
“Yep, that’s me, well, it’s not me, it’s my brother, but I
know what ye mean, I’m Chris, Chris Kimmage, you were thinking of Paul, writes
for the Sunday Times, whistle blew on the whole cycling thing, over the drugs.”
“That’s it, wow you look alike, were you twins, I mean are
you twins?”
“No, he got all the brains and brawn and I’m the soup
leftovers, that’s what Ma says, how d’you know so much ‘bout Irish cycling
apart from trying to take us all out!”
“Oh, that’s my Granda, he’s from Dublin, Daddy’s Greek, I’m
a mixture, Granda calls me a dolly mixture on account of me being a girl but I
bike like a bloke.”
“Are ye working? Do ye want to go for coffee or a cycle?”
“Yeah, let me deliver this and I’ll meet you in Costa on
Regent’s Street in five, ask for a FayDip.”
“A what? Bye.”
Chris and Fay cycled out to Greenwich Park in the evening,
he kept asking her to go faster and when they got to the park he staked out a
kilometre stretch. Over and over she had to cycle up and down, faster,
straighter, leaning in, leaning out. Not once was it right. Then he sent her
off on a cool down run around the park.
Chris was on the phone when she got back.
“Da, seriously she is fast, she
listens, I think we’ve found her, the next great Irish rider, I’ll send ye the
feed when I get to a computer.”
Fay didn’t sleep, a sudden but sustained bout of weltsmertz,
held her in night sweats and the rising incubus of self doubt and obsessions of
conspiracies that only find the light of day in the darkness of night. It was
two years since she started cycling professionally, giving up couriering for
careering, so the ‘witty’ tabloids put it.Tomorrow she would face twenty nine kilometres of time trialling
cycling. On paper she was the unknown, the outsider. The local riders in London
treated her like an interloper until she gave allegiance to Ireland using
Granda Byrne as her in.
The broadsheets had favoured tales
of Pheidippides, the ancient runner of Athens, mashing her name, Fay De Pidese with
his. For five minutes just as the sun was rising she reminisced in her head
about carrying letters from churches to investment banks.
Push through, push through, push through
The mantra well taught by Chris was drumming in her head
The guy came out of nowhere and sent her hurtling into the
crowd at the corner of Station Road and Weston Green Road. In that moment,
clarity of thought bubbles hit each other and she gasped.
Gasped because she impaled her arm on a pole, gasped because
of the guy, gasped because she suddenly realised it was probably wrong in a way
she didn’t know; letters should not be couriering between chapels and investors,
gasped because it was over, the dream, the gold, the winning.
She was brought to Kinston Hospital, Chris and Paul visited
and what felt like half of Ireland. It must be what the gold medal winner was
feeling. She felt elated, she must talk to Paul about journalism and
investigating. She had a plan.
I really like how you slow down time and bring us into her head in those final three paragraphs. I didn’t expect it to go like that, well done! (I like to be surprised 🙂 )
I liked the pace of the piece Suzie, it felt a bit like a race. I have to confess though that as I read it I was reading emotion and action but the details were fuzzy to me. A good chunk of words were a mystery! But for me that added to the fun.
Here’s my entry for the competition:
RELAY
The day before Christmas and we were getting drunk at the 19th Hole, our local golf course bar which was almost buried in snow. There was a roaring fire and Wally the barman and a kindergarden classmate brought over four long Jameson’s on ice.
-Welcome home boys, this round is on the Inn.
We raised our glasses and toasted Wally, the town, snow, summer, leaving town, our school and especially our grade 10 Math teacher, Miss Miotto who had the body of a cello. All home for the holidays from a different city, our talk ranged from work to sports to wives to kids and usually ended up back in town revolving around some trivial memory.
-You guys hear about Zooby? Asked Sid, a dentist in San Francisco.
-Yeah, he went out to the Rockies and became a ski instructor or park ranger or something.
-He died in March. Burned to death in a shack.
-No.
-No.
-No. Really?
-Guess he was doing some early spring ice fishing, the wood stove caught fire and incinerated him, the shack and three Huskies, I can’t believe you guys didn’t hear anything.
-An accident?
-So they say.
-Was he wasted?
-Ice fishing. Probably.
-Why didn’t any one email me? I asked.
We stared at the fire, ordered another pitcher of Molson and reminisced over Zooby.
-Remember that track-meet where Zooby broke his arm? Asked Brent, a hedge-fund manager in Toronto.
-Yeah.
-Yeah. High-jump, right? He jumped the mat. Sid said.
-I don’t remember that, I said.
-Sure you do. You were there. I remember because we bribed you to drop the baton in the 400m relay. Said Goody, now a pastry instructor at LeCordonBleu Chef school in Key West.
-I remember it like it was yesterday.
-I remember dropping the baton, I admitted, but it was an accident, it banged my knee and slipped out of my hand, we were disqualified, sorry, but there was no bribe. No money changed hands.
-Bull.
-No way.
-I can’t believe you don’t remember. It changed my opinion of you completely. Said Harlen, a pilot for FedEx, who moved cities so quickly we had stopped asking where he was hanging his hat.
-Why would you guys bribe me? Why would my own team mates bribe me to drop our own baton? I asked.
-No one wanted to run. It was the last event of the day. We were dead.
-I remember it was a scorcher. I had a sunburn on the back of my legs.
-It was your idea. Sid said pointing his glass at me.
-I never thought you would do it. Goody added.
-Completely ruthless, said Harlen, Coach Bogart was fuming, we had a good chance to pick up a medal in that race.
-You guys are taking the piss, I don’t remember any of this. Did Coach Bogart know about this?
I had always respected the Coach’s crotchety devotion, shaded optimism.
-I never told him.
-I doubt it.
-I think I would’ve remembered his reaction. If he’d know, he’d’ve killed you.
-How much money did you all give me? I asked, still not believing.
-Five bucks each. Brent said.
-I threw a race for fifteen bucks.
-You were a kid. Fifteen bucks was a lot back then.
-Selective memory. Dude, you did it.
-Pure mercenary. Ice cold man.
The fire crackled. A spark flew onto the carpet. I stood up and extinguished the glint with my father’s borrowed work boot. I felt like saying something angry but didn’t.
-I’m going to drain the weasel.
Instead of going down the stair to the men’s dressing room, I went out the back door and looked over the course from the teeing ground ledge. Flakes flurried and spun, moon reflecting off the vast white. Ski and snowmobile and deer tracks could be followed. I undid my pants and watched the snow dribble yellow. The air was cold on my skin. A cold I had forgotten since moving to Columbia. As I was zipping up, I heard a voice:
-So this customer sez to me, I got a tip for you, “don’t eat yellow snow”
I hear Wally’s laugh morph into a cough. I turn to see a cigarette dangling from a smile.
-Jez Wally don’t scare me like that.
-Afraid you gonna fall off the ledge and toboggan down with your willy out?
-Some things never change.
We shared some silence. He offered me a smoke.
-You ever miss this place?
-Sure all the time. It’s a good place. A beautiful place.
-Then why did you leave?
-Just to see what other places are like, I guess. Just to see.
-”If you don’t leave home, you ain’t got no home to come home to.” right?
-Something like that Wally, something like that.
-Well, I better get back in there and stoke that old fire, you guys want another round?
-Sure set one up. Hey Walt, can I ask you something?
-Sure, but I don’t know if I got any answers.
-You know me pretty well. Huh? I mean we were neighbors and classmates for what 12-15 years? You know me, right.
-Yeah I know you.
-Would you say I was ruthless?
Wally threw his cigarette butt into the white snow. He looked at me then rubbered his hands together and blew on them to keep them warm.
-Ruthless, naw, but an opportunist, for sure.
-What do you mean?
-You do what you say you will and you get what you want.
-I’ll take that as a compliment, Walt.
-Take it any way you can get it, but my ass is freezing, back to the grindstone. Hasta luego hermano.
He swung the glass door open and began stamping his boots to get the snow off. I watched him go behind the bar. A carload of high school girls came in the front door. I watched Wally crack a joke through the glass window and could hear their laughter.
I went back to the fire and my old friends, finally realizing why I never enjoyed team sports.
Too much dialogue. You are not writing a script for the play, but a short story. Your characters miss gestures, mimics, physical appearance, ie. all those things that make your characters ‘alive’. Also, you are missing some introspection, especially since you are you using a first-person narrator. Conclusion comes too early and should have been preceded by at least some contemplation from the main character.
Sorry if I was being too harsh, but I think you had good characters and a great story in mind, which just came out clumsily.
Have a look at this part of your dialogue:
-He died in March. Burned to death in a shack.
-No.
-No.
-No. Really?
This would look much prettier if you had written something like:
-He died in March – said Wally, lowering his head a bit. He took a deep sigh. -Burned to death in a shack.
Everyone was in disbelief. I had a quick flashback of his smiling face. I was disappointed nobody emailed me, tough.
Princessmaja, Super thanks for reading, I do agree that the story came out forced and incomplete, but I was shooting to sketch a minimalistic encounter in the form of Carver or Checkov, where what is not said, is more important that what is… but thank you. I really appreciate your comments.
(PS. It was Sid that broke the news)
It has a great atmosphere. Really well done with your minimal dialogue. I agree Carver/Checkov or Hemingway…:)
I too loved the dialogue – I could “see” the scene vividly!
Hi Doc. Congratulations and good on you for entering. I enjoy a short story with lots of dialogue. It says so much about the characters and I think your dialogue was well done in that it moved the story along quickly. I could almost “hear” your characters yarning around the table, which is not easy to achieve. Good job.
Regards,
Kerri Harris
Thanks Kerri, your input means a lot to me.
doc
Ducati
It wasn’t odd that Frank died in the
pasture; in fact, it was only fitting that he died there. What was odd was that,
when they found him, the horses had circled his body in a small tight ring,
their noses down towards him as if their heads were heavy with grieving.
Ducati, the horse he had rescued, raised, and trained, was by Frank’s head, his
eyes closed, tail still, nose resting lightly like a compress on Frank’s
leathery forehead.
Frank’s body lay in the center of the
circle and the summer morning would have covered him in lightness and dew but for
the protection of the broad tawny bodies of the horses.
When someone makes the journey from
this life to the next, they leave behind an invisible wake. When Frank Nightingale left this world for the
next, none of us were necessarily happy that we had known him, but we certainly
knew more for having known him. But Ducati?
He felt Frank’s absence more than we could have imagined.
* * *
I watch Frank while I’m mucking out stalls
in the barn, and I stop shoveling for a moment. He marches towards the barn entrance,
purposefully, tyrannically, but Ducati’s ears go forward in his stall and he
nickers.
Frank stops at the end of the breezeway
and looks into the dark barn, down the row of stalls. The barn is full of
morning sounds – snorts and nickers from the horses, shuffling of hooves in the
straw, the crunching of hay. Above him in the loft, the hired hands are tossing
bales, one after another, down to the floor below until they have a pile of
mangled bales ready to be snipped open, parted, and distributed.
He sniffs and cracks his knuckles, then
pinches a Marlboro out from the pack of cigarettes that he’s stuffed in his
jacket pocket. He slips it between his chapped lips.
Philippa crosses through the breezeway
and starts down the row of stalls carrying a bucket of oat mash in one hand and
a pitchfork in the other. Frank scowls,
and then he pulls the smoke out of his mouth and he starts to yell.
“Philippa!
What the hell? Flip-flops? What the hell are you thinking?”
“I forgot my—“
“Find some boots or go home.”
She drops the fork and the bucket of
mash on the floor and bursts into tears.
“Suck it up, princess. You’re not here
because I’m nice. You’re here because I’m the best. Quit cryin’. Get some boots
on.”
There are rules in the barn, and I get
it, but some days I really hate him for his lack of compassion.
I start shoveling again in the stall,
hoping I won’t do anything to incite his wrath further.
Frank is my next door neighbor. I take
lessons with him so my mother won’t have to drive me anywhere. She hates
driving, so he is convenient. But he has the reputation as the strictest, fiercest
dressage coach on the West Coast.
“Dressage is a dance between the horse
and its rider,” he would bark. “It’s poetry.”
I could never have imagined a man like
him saying anything was dancing or poetry.
“Your hands need to be light,” he’d
roar as I sat in the saddle. “Light! You are connecting with his mouth. You
don’t need more than a light pull. You yank any horse of mine and I will toss
you out of my barn. Anyone can ride a horse like it was a car, with a yank to turn
right or left. My riders need to treat a
horse different than that.”
And so I learned from him what any good
equestrian knows – that
delicacy and firmness yield results; inside leg pressed gently to the girth, outside leg pressed gently just
behind the girth,
cross the diagonal, switch legs, hands soft, and the rider will be graced with a
flying lead change.
I fell off many times while learning to
ride. Frank was always there yelling at me to get back on. “You want to learn
to ride?” he’d scream. “Then get back on that horse and do it again.” And my
back would stiffen while he yelled about missing the cue from my horse. That I
was not part of the team if I wasn’t listening to my partner.
And then, the whole time he waited for
me to remount, he’d be side-stepping and slapping his riding crop against his boots—slap
two three slap two three slap two three—as if he was dancing.
I took lessons a couple days a week at
first for a year, practicing half-halts, collected trot, extended trot, until
Frank climbed the fence between our houses and knocked on the door to our trailer. He told my mother he wanted me to try for the
Olympics in four years – but that would mean riding six, maybe seven days a
week. And it would mean hard work. He
would train me for a small additional charge but I would have to work off the
rest cleaning stalls, grooming horses, stacking bales, painting fences.
I heard him say “Your boy has a bit of
talent that I think I can work with. He connects with the horses.”
“Good,” she said as she picked a piece
of cat hair off her muumuu. “That boy
could stand to do some hard man-type work.”
Then she looked at my father as he sat, slumped in front of the bookkeeping
program on his computer, a client`s folder overflowing with receipts and
invoices beside him.
I rode Elated until, for some reason, he
let me ride Ducati – his baby. He loved all the horses, but Ducati was his
favorite. Ducati and I became inseparable as I worked my way through the lessons
to qualify for the Olympics. Before I
was to leave for Beijing though, Frank had a stroke and ended up in hospital
for a week. I was to go with `Birdy`, the
assistant trainer, instead.
Philippa manages to find a spare pair
of boots and she smiles at me sadly from the breezeway. I smile back. We’re in this together. We’re learning to be the best, from the best.
No matter what.
We load Ducati into the trailer.
Frank says nothing to me, but he
whispers something in Ducati`s ear as they stand together inside the trailer. I wish he would say something to me.
Ducati responds with a soft push into
Frank`s chest. Frank reaches up and pats Ducati’s big cheek, and Ducati’s eyes
close for a moment.
* * *
My coach is tough. He terrifies me and all who know him. But
once is he up on a horse, his large calloused hands become light and easy, and he
is poetry. Symmetry.
I want to be able to ride like that.
* * *
He is found in the field the day after
we get back with the medal from Beijing and after that, Ducati becomes sullen
and difficult, finally ending up relegated to the back pastures alone, unrideable,
where he stands by the fence, day after day, like he’s waiting.
I realize, by watching Ducati grieve,
that I don’t really know much about my coach. I realize that Ducati had some kind
of profound bond with Frank—a bond that I very clearly missed out on by only knowing
Frank two ways – as teacher and as tyrant.
I liked this a lot. I know nothing about equestrian, but it felt real. Good job.
Thanks so much, Brian!
I always enjoy the horse stories. Love your Ducati here.
I thought this was great. Frank is brilliantly characterised through pretty sparse dialogue and action. The beginning and ending are strong images and tie it up well ( the body in the field). I thought Phillipa was a superfluous character though it was good the way Frank spoke to her initially as it told us about Frank. You tell a great story, very earthy.
Here’s MY entry for the Theme: Competitive Athletes.
The
Real Crowd Winner
“Are
you coming out for wrestling?” Mr. Zuber, my fifth grade P.E. teacher asked.
“Who
me?”
“Yes
you,” He said, staring at me with his crooked eye. He had a crooked eye that
made it possible for him to look at one kid, while he was talking to another;
it kept us all on our toes. He also had a scar on his face. We figured that he
got it in a knife fight or something. No one ever asked him how he got his
wound, because he was too tough to even ask.
“Uh…I’m
actually a pretty good basketball player and thought I would go out for
basketball.”
“Basketball’s
for sissies,” Mr. Zuber said, now looking at me with his one good eye that
seemed to stare right through me.
So I guess looking at that
eye and hearing those words was how I ended up going out for wrestling when I
should’ve gone out for basketball. Sometimes our biggest mistakes in life are
made with just the smallest decisions.
I was a short little
shrimp back then and I should have had my head examined for letting Mr. Zuber
talk me into wrestling. But I did it and there was no turning back. After the
first day of practice I wanted to quit, but I knew if I did my dad would kill
me. So I hung in there. Besides, I liked Mr. Zuber. And I especially liked his
wife, Mrs. Zuber. She looked just like Natasha, Boris Badenov’s girlfriend on
Bullwinkle[i]: She stood over Mr. Zuber
by about six inches and had long shiny black hair that fell straight down the
sides of her face to her narrow shoulders. Her large eyes, accented with deep
dark makeup, stood out from her pale white face and thin pointed nose. She
always wore a long black dress just below the knee, which covered her long white
legs with black high-heeled shoes. She was a striking contrast to Mr. Zuber,
who always wore white pants, a white shirt, and white tennis shoes.
After
a few weeks of practice Mr. Zuber thought it would be a good idea to have us
little fifth graders wrestle the seventh graders to see if we were any good.
Boy was that a dumb idea. We didn’t have any weigh-ins or anything like that;
we just lined up and the coaches matched us up by eye balling what they thought
were good matchups.
Our
littlest guy was Eddie Tatro. We called him Taterbug because he was so small.
But he was really strong for his size. He did twenty-two pull-ups for his
President’s Physical Fitness[ii] test. I did two pull-ups,
the last one by kicking my feet extra hard to get my chin over the bar. Anyway,
Taterbug was our first wrestler in the pee wee shrimp category and he actually
won his match; the poor seventh grader he beat was humiliated.
“Good
job!” Mr. Zuber yelled as he slapped Taterbug on the back.
The
next category was the just plain shrimp category: that was me.
“You’re next.” I thought he was talking to a
kid four seats down from me but then I realized he was looking at me with that
crooked eye of his again. “Now get out there and do the same thing!” He said,
pushing me out on the mat.
The
guy I got lined up with was a seventh grader named Carl Crawford. Carl was
about six feet tall. I guess they lined him up with me because he was so skinny.
So there I was, face to face with my first wrestling combatant. I was terrified.
The ref blew the whistle
and Carl came after me. I tried to run clockwise around the mat to avoid him
but he caught me and threw me to the mat. The crowd started yelling and before
twenty seconds had elapsed, I found myself lying flat on my back in a
half-nelson that Carl had around my neck. I was doing the neck bridge that we’d
learned in practice to keep from getting pinned, but it wasn’t working very
well. Under Carl’s armpit, I looked over to Mr. Zuber for some suggestions of
how to get out of this predicament, but all I saw was Mr. Zuber’s wife Natasha yelling
at the ref:
“He’s choking him, he’s
choking him!” Natasha yelled, “Can’t you see he’s choking him?”
Carl Crawford wasn’t
really choking me, but I thought this might be a good strategy, so I started
sputtering and gagging as if I was really getting choked. I kicked my feet and
made the most sickening choking sounds that you ever could imagine. This made
Mrs. Zuber yell even louder.
“Hey referee, he can’t
breathe, he can’t breathe!” She shrieked. She was so upset that I think I saw
tears coming from her eyes. But the ref, who happened to be the seventh grade
wrestling coach, had seen more than one half-nelson in his life, and knew I was
faking it.
Slam! The sound of his
flat hand on the mat echoed throughout the gym and the seventh grade team all
jumped up and cheered. My first match ended in a pin—on me. I limped off the
mat holding my neck with both hands as though I was about to die, still gagging
and sputtering. This tactic seemed to work because everyone in the gym was
yelling at that mean ol’ ref who let the little shrimp fifth grader almost get
choked to death in front of their very eyes.
“It’s all right
honey.” Natasha came up and hugged me as
I buried my face in the midsection of her soft black dress. “You should be
ashamed of yourself!” She yelled, directing her scorn at the ref for allowing
such atrocities. But he just looked at her and smiled.
The crowd kept on booing
and Mrs. Zuber kept on yelling and I kept on acting by holding my hand to my
neck. It worked so well that even my teammates began to feel sorry for me. Poor
ol’ Carl Crawford even started feeling guilty about what he’d done. Through all
of this, I wasn’t sure, but I think my neck actually began to hurt. As far as I
was concerned—Carl Crawford may have won the match—but I was the real crowd
winner.
Then I noticed Mr. Zuber
standing on the side of the mat with his arms folded; he was standing real
straight with his whistle hanging on his white shirt and staring at me. This
time I knew exactly who he was looking at. He didn’t say anything because his
wife Natasha was still yelling at the ref. But when I looked back into his one
good eye, I knew that he knew what I knew—and I couldn’t look into that eye
anymore.
[i]
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show – An animated television series that originally
aired from Nov 1959 through June 1964 on ABC and NBC starring the moose
Bullwinkle and a flying squirrel named Rocky. The villains in the serialized
adventure were two Russian-like spies, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
[ii]
The President’s Physical Fitness test – President John F. Kennedy expanded the
President’s Council on Youth Fitness in the 1961-1962 school year with pilot
programs in the U.S. which tested grade school students for physical fitness.
This made me laugh out loud! Love the subtle humor 😉
“Horse-back
riding isn’t a sport,” she said as I stared at her in disbelief. “Try running track
and you’ll find out what a real sport is.” As she back-handed me with a quick
turn of her body, I read the slogan printed on the back of her shirt. “Our
sport is your punishment.”
“Running
isn’t a sport,” I had told her beforehand, insulting the very thing she
treasured most in this world, the very thing that had her heart. “It’s just
moving your legs back and forth very quickly. Try riding a horse.” She quickly
retorted by laughing at the years of effort I had put into learning how to
horse-back ride. I was ready to prove her wrong. The next day, I signed up for
my high school track team.
I
surprised her when I showed up at the first practice, but she quickly pulled
her eyebrows back down like blinds over a window and shifted her focus back on
her training. I jeered at her without words, prancing by her in exaggerated fashion
to prove how simple it was while triumphantly ignoring the sweat that dripped
down my face. I quickly realized I had an inborn knack for it and breezed by
the girls who never tried very hard. When she attempted to congratulate me on
joining, I smirked and told her that it was easy. I told her I would win my
first race and asked her if she knew how. She stared at me as I leaned in
close, almost touching the tip of my nose to hers. My voice snaked from my
mouth in a low whisper. “I’m simply going to run faster than everyone else.”
My
coach assigned me to the two thousand meter race, which is two and a half laps
around a standard four hundred meter track. Our team jogged together for a warm
up, and I watched her just ahead of me, already relishing in the regret I knew
she would instantly feel when I finished first. When my race was called, I
casually meandered over to the track and took my place amongst the fifteen
others who were ready to run. I had secretly conspired to wait until they all
tired from exertion before I made my move, like an underdog thoroughbred in the
race that would make him famous. I could hear their nervous breaths as the
energy peaked around us just before the signal. When the gun fired, I slipped
in and out of the others like a sardine through his school until I caught up to
the first place runner. I wanted to tease her, daring her to run faster. I
followed her quick footsteps like a shadow attached to her shoes, and the balls
of our feet struck the rubber so quickly that we might not have touched it at
all. It was only after we were three quarters of the way around the track did I
suddenly realize my mistake.
The
measly two and a half laps now felt like miles. My muscles began to tire,
melting into the track like liquid lead. My heart beat on the drums within my
ears. The girl in first place pulled away from me as my entire body began to
weigh down. I fought against it but it was as though the air in front of me had
thickened and I was being made to run through sludge. Another girl passed me
and I tried to remember how easy it was to run, but my own mind screamed
against my lies and begged me to stop. My arms turned into dead weights
swinging at my side. I looked out towards the track that lay ahead, but it
appeared as a desert with no oasis in sight for miles. Everything within me was
commanding me to rest, but my pride glared at me and I knew I had to finish. As
I turned the corner to run the last straightaway, the crowd’s cheers filtered
into my ears and I noticed them pointing behind me. It was only when another
girl whipped by me did I realize it was a warning. I poured across the finish
line as slowly as oatmeal slides off a spoon and immediately stumbled towards the
grass encircled by the track.
My
lungs were burning and my breath could have caught a match on fire with one
exhale. My coach, who had not spoken to me once before, appeared from the
haziness surrounding me and grabbed my arm just below my pit as if he knew my
knees were about to buckle. He asked my name. I could barely remember it. I
could feel every muscle under my skin and each one was in agony. My coach
continued to speak to me, but I could not translate a word. My body was in
survival mode. The race had been a complete shock to my system, an awakening.
This was a lot harder than it looked.
She
came to find me after my race, and she smiled at me as I tried my best to look
like I felt fine. But I didn’t. I had never done something so difficult and she
knew it. “Good job,” she said sincerely. “You did well.” I breathed back a
thanks and she grinned. She tried to comfort me through my pain, explaining
that many of the other racers had trained for years and had completed programs
intended to increase speed and endurance. I nodded, more to silence her than
anything else. I nursed my bruised ego at home that night.
I
dreamed about the race, revisiting the anguish and the difficulty that had
taken me off guard. As I turned it over in my head again and again, I realized
it wasn’t the lack of endurance that had slowed me down. It was the lack of
heart I had for it, the heart that she had. To this day, I will never admit
aloud to her how difficult that race was, but we both know I will never run
that fast again. I’ve left that up to her. It is, after all, her sport.
Hi Karen,A really great story! As a runner, I really wanted the horse rider to learn a lesson. I also loved the t-shirt slogan. I just wanted to check your math, though: two and a half laps of a 400m track is only 1000m.
Thanks Tamyka! That’s a true story, and I was the rider. I was definitely humbled by that experience. I still don’t believe I’ve ever done anything that painful since. And woops! I totally meant one thousand meters! How embarrassing!
I think, under those circumstances, it would probably feel like 2000 metres 😀
Ooh, flashbacks to that horrible feeling in my lungs after racing in high school track! Good job capturing the pain and the story behind the race.
Thank you, Steph!
Great dialogue and good visual description of the race and how you felt at the end of the it. Could be the start of how you eventually became friends despite the animosity and superiority you felt towards her in the beginning.
“THE GYMNAST, THE CAT’…GABBY THE TABBY’
I never met a cat I didn’t like. It’s the same for me with Gymnastics at all levels. They both are amazingly similar in many ways. This is what I want to convey to my reader. It is not fiction, but my reality.
“The way she moves is quiet and gentle, and if a love like that ever crept into my heart on two legs as softy as those little cat feet, I’d be purring for the rest of my life.” (Note #1)
In World-Wide news this week they call Gabby Douglas, ‘The Flying Squirrel’, ‘The Tiny Dynamo’. 2012 Summer Olympic 2 time Gold Medal Winner for Gymnastics in Great Britain . My eyes could hardly believe what I was seeing. Initially, I could see determination, eyes so focused on the goal. Then, after a perfect performance, there appeared a sparkle in her eyes, the shine on her face, and the joy in her smile. That beautiful face, that awesome body.
I’ve seen that look in the face of a cat having reached its victory, a goal to catch its prey, motionless except for the swishing tail, then, the sudden race for a perfect kill! “Gabby, you KILLED it!”
Having had cats all my life, I wrote a short story of my sixty-five years with them. It was dubbed “All The Cats I’ve Loved Before”. (A play on words from a lovely ballad by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias). My memories are from childhood until even now. Names, how they lived, how they passed on, was the theme of my story…they got into my heart.
Cats are complicated creatures, not unlike teenage girls. From sedate, calm, dignified,
to totally free-spirited, full of all sorts of antics, some that defy gravity. I saw that in Gabby, as she seemed to fly with such grace, across the floor and on her balance beam.
The media reported that the night before Gabby’s final performance she called her mom for support. Her mom was later interviewed. She had told her daughter how she was absolutely positive she could do it and that Gabby should tell HERSELF that! This seemed to be all the sixteen year old needed, to believe in herself.
Even cats need their mothers, when there is a special bond. I’ve seen a mother cat with 3 different litters, still coming to her, for grooming, comfort, even suckling. They are young adults, teenagers, and newborns. She is usually patient if not overpowered! Amazing.
“SAKI (H.H. Munio)” wrote, “The animal which Egyptians worshipped as divine, Romans venerated as a symbol of liberty, Europeans in the middle ages viewed as an agent of demonology, has displayed to all ages two closely blended characteristics…COURAGE and SELF-RESPECT.” (Note #2) I believe these two traits are the foundation for all humanity also, in any career, sport, and all of life. Certainly Miss Douglas was the perfect portrayal of such.
From history’s perspective, describing Egypt as cat-friendly is like saying Switzerland welcomes bank deposits. It was to Egypt , according to archeologists, cats first wandered from the desert and deigned to become domesticated, a good 4 or 5 thousand years ago. (Note #3)
It proved a good choice for the cat.
Freedom to choose is one of life’s most critical responsibilities. Gabby chose the rigors of years of practice for the reward of winning.
“Cats, like the athlete, exercise…(and most certainly get more than adequate sleep) they are a magical influence upon highly developed men of intellect,” (Note #4) to name a few, Lincoln , Twain, Hemingway, Brando. It is my hope that Gabby’s success will be a great influence for young girls everywhere. She now begins a new era of her life, to use the next four years grooming herself for the 2016 World Olympics in Brazil .
MAY THE BEST BE YOURS DEAR GABBY! 🙂
Notes:
#1. “Could You Love Me like My Cat?” By Beth Fowler, 1996
#2. “The Square Egg”
#3 “Christopher Wren”, ‘The Cat Who Covered the World”
#4 “”Venus in Furs”
A cleverly written piece that compares the gymnast Gabby Douglas to the graceful moves of a cat. I feel this is a very entertaining and thought-provoking piece about the virtues of a cat and the athletic skill of this dynamic young woman.
SWIMMING IN SKIN
I pick at my swimsuit, fitting loosely around my small frame, wanting a bigger one. Sadly, I need is a smaller suit, a size zero instead of the one/two that I was two days ago. I should be thrilled- in my former life, before I had become a swimmer at this college in Pennsylvania, I was a size fifteen- not exactly heavy, but I wouldn’t grace the cover of a magazine, smiling and secretly wishing for a carb-filled bagel. But carbs are her enemy. She cannot give in.
I used to envy those girls, the way that they were thin and beautiful, the way that their skin clings to their bones like a stubborn child, not willing to let go. Not willing to share space with muscle or fat. Now that I am one of those skinny, seemingly perfect girls, I know that thinness is not a virtue. Not that I ever want to be fat again.
I scoff at my ridiculous thoughts. Not that I was ever fat in the first place, I thought.
“Lindsay! Come on!”
“Okay.” I stand up, trembling. I wish that I had eaten something for breakfast that morning besides eggs and an apple. Not that they weren’t filling- I just didn’t eat anything for dinner the night before. Now I’m paying the price. I feel weak and pathetic on what may be the most important day of my life- the Finals.
The Finals decide your fate- if you will move on and be able to follow your dreams of glory and fame and Olympic gold, or if you have to- God forbid- fall back on your college major and become a teacher or a lawyer or a journalist. (If I don’t do well in the Finals and go pro- which I don’t want to- then I’ll end up getting into an MA/PhD in psychology. I will specialize in eating disorders, studying the way that they tear young girls apart so I can help those girls.)
I walk over to where the rest of my team is. My friend Charlene smiles at me. I smile back, telling her that she looks good, even if she looks disgusting. She is thinner than me, and I am the person whose suit sags and looks ill-fitted, like a designer wants to purposely humiliate me. Maybe they do. Maybe the people who make these swimsuits laugh at our girls swimming team, a team made of bones.
Bones, bones, bones. Size six, size four, size two, the size zero. That’s what the seniors had told us during freshman year. They sad that we needed to be thin, thin, thin to win, win, win! Their fists pumped in the air. They smiled, saying that heavy people sunk down in the water faster. We believed them. We were naïve. We are naïve.
They knew that they were destroying us. Destroying our psyches, our bodies, our lives.
Lydia Jacobson, one of the seniors, looked at me in disdain. I blushed, the heat rising up to my chubby face, and didn’t eat for three days straight.
For every ten pounds that I lost they slipped me twenty dollars, telling me to keep up the “good” work. I felt like I was being paid for my soul.
I was so happy when I reached a size eight. I ran around in my newly tightened swimsuit, the one that I had redone myself, feeling prettier than any of those models in the magazines.
The seniors looked at me, shook their heads, and told me that at a size six, I would be pretty. At a size four, I would be beautiful. At a size two, I would be gorgeous. At a size zero, I would be unbelievably stunning.
They were dead wrong.
My similarly anorexic teammates, the coach, and I walk to the area where we will wait for the competition to start. Coach Greggs gives us a warning disguised as a pep talk. Nothing new there; she is the queen of ambiguity.
I listen to her advice, knowing that I will fail. I hope that I will fail. I must fail, or I will be trapped in this world, trapped in this appalling body forever.
I am a great swimmer, and I love to win until I realize that I won with my body, not my skill. I win with my thinness, not my butterfly.
I win and I lose, all the time.
I wonder how I can throw the match without looking like I want it. I don’t have much time-
The buzzer rang, warning us to take our places. I was one of our starters; Charlene and Kyle (real name Kylina) were the others.
We start, diving into the clear, blue water. I feel it swirling around me, holding me aloft, supporting me.
Water is my home. The team is my enemy. Competition is my tyrant. Food is now my tempter, my former comfort.
I can’t win this.
I must win this.
I will dazzle them all.
I shall succumb. I shall fall.
I can’t make a decision, and I am almost halfway down the track! The adrenaline poisons my thoughts, saying that I love the life of an athlete.
My brain tells me that I should stay healthy and happy, neither of which I had been since freshman year, when I had become a size eight.
I am now a senior. Four years of misery, briefly lifted by feelings of happiness as I zoom down the track.
I must decide quickly, before I am too fast for them to catch up with me.
I bite my lip and groan, lifting my head out of the water like a swan. I hold my leg, letting the others catch up with me.
“No!” I hear Greggs scream. “What are you doing?!” I “tried” to straighten my leg, failing.
Seconds, milliseconds of precious time pass before the other swimmers pass me. They hadn’t even paid attention to my “injury”. They only cared about placing.
I didn’t want to win anymore. Because when I lost, I lost. When I won, I lost. I could never win and win. There is always losing.
Now, when I lose, I will win.
I start swimming again, using my “leg cramp” as an excuse to move slowly. I drag myself through the water, until it is over. Somebody else has one. I placed fourth, not enough to advance to the next race.
I get out of the water and see the coach’s angry face. For once, I do not care about her rage. Nothing that she says can touch me. I am finally free.
“Are you crazy?” She spits in my face. Not a deliberate, Flavor of Love-style spit, but more of a fine mist coming out as she screams. I wince. “You are- were- my best swimmer! What happened to you out there?”
“I won.” I grin at my former coach’s bewildered expression.
I know that I am right. I may have lost the weight game and the swimming game, but what I gained was better than either of those things.
I won the life game. I stood up for myself, and I won.
I will leave this pool and go to McDonalds. I will celebrate my victory with a cheeseburger, large fries, a large drink. I will feel the Sprite slipping down my throat, cool and refreshing.
It will be the best meal that I have had in years.
I was in 4th grade when my high jump career began. It all started when I moved from Canyon View Elementary in 3rd grade and became an Oakdale Roadrunner. First it was the shuffle run, darting down the hall in a relay, grabbing white board erasers to bring back to the start line. Then it was pull ups and sit ups and the mile run, all for the sake of the Presidential Fitness Award, a flimsy little paper with the fake signature of the President of the United States, making us feel like true Americans.
Then, in 4th grade, our fitness abilities expanded, and we started doing Tae Bo with Mr. Billy Blanks, a taekwondo master who whipped us into shape on those dreary days inside the school gym when it was too cold to be outside. After a winter of Tae Bo, we were little ninjas, and it was time for the spring sports – the annual 6th grader v. teacher softball game, the long jump, the pull up challenge, the sit and reach, and the high jump, all part of the end-of-the-school-year-field-day Olympics.
I remember working hard to earn the Presidential Fitness Award. I’d practice my pull ups and sit ups at home, I’d jump up and down the stairs to improve my long jumping ability, I’d sprint around my backyard so I could run a faster mile. But there was still the high jump with its gleaming white bar and inviting big, blue, comfy landing mat, and they didn’t want me to do it. They thought a stature larger than barely 4 feet tall was required to succeed at a sport like high jump, and maybe I was the smallest 4th grader Oakdale Roadrunner, maybe I really did look like a kindergartner, but my heart was big and my determination strong.
I remember clearly learning just how far back to begin my approach, learning how exact the curve of my run needed to be to put myself in position, learning just how high to kick my legs after the jump so they wouldn’t knock the bar down. And that first day of high jump lessons, I got home from school and went straight out back to our medium sized trampoline. I pulled it into position, dragged stacks of lawn chairs around on either side, and I went and found the 15-foot-long metal pipe lying in the dead leaves behind the hill. I put it on the chairs, and I began practicing. First it was two lawn chairs high, perhaps 2.5 feet, and slowly, it climbed – three chairs, five chairs, six chairs. The higher the scarier.
Every day I practiced after school, after I finished violin and piano practice and chores and homework. Every day I’d get a little better, more consistent, and every week I’d jump higher. A sore back from landing on a big metal pipe for hours and bruised ankles from carelessly kicking the pipe down as I jumped – simply lessons, motivation to jump higher, with more finesse. All this through 4th and 5th grade. By the time I was in 6th grade, I’d made enormous strides, plus I’d grown a few inches.
That year, my 6th grade year, as spring bloomed and June came closer, they’d leave the school high jump equipment out for us to practice at recess, so we’d take a break from our usual soccer or football and practice. All of us, the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, would line up together, and even though I was in the oldest grade in school, the 4th and 5th grade kids, especially the boys, seemed older, taller, more intimidating. I’d jump with them, but eventually the bar would rise to my height, and higher. I could only watch after that.
So I practiced more and more at home. I’d wake up early to eat breakfast and do some chores and get a few jumps in before the bus came. It was a push to the end, and the mornings grew warmer and warmer until finally, the day arrived. I remember my mom drove us to school that day, my little sister and me, and the whole school and all the parents gathered in the big part of the field while the sun was still low in the sky.
The year before, on my 5th grade Olympics field day, we had just begun the high jump competition when the rain started and made us move inside. I knocked the bar down on my 3rd jump, out because of single elmination, and I knew, just knew, that it was because we’d had to move. I’d made that jump so many times before. But my 6th grade year, my last chance at proving myself on the high jump, my last moments of childhood, it was a bright, chill, spring morning. I changed out of my blue tank top and flowered capris into running shorts and a t-shirt.
I stood in line, waiting my turn, watching the others’ curved runs, analyzing their moves. And then there was nobody in front of me. I looked up, focused on the white beam above the blue mat, not too high. I jogged in my curve, sped up as I approached, and lifted off my right foot at exactly the right moment, flying over the bar easily. Adrenaline pumped through my heart and into my ears. I saw my mom cheering, waving the video camera as I walked back to the line for the next jump, a little higher this time. I cleared the next three jumps, really arching my body and kicking my legs on the last one – it was getting higher.
I stood in line for the next jump, I watched them raise the bar to my eye-level. This was my limit. I had only cleared a bar so high two or three times out of 10 in my practices. My chances were slim. But when nobody was in front of me again, I looked at the high jump sitting on the grass in the sun, the blue mat waiting for the imprint of my body, and I started running, slowly at first and then faster and faster. I leaped, I arched, I kicked.
Whether or not I cleared that last jump isn’t what is important here. After that last day of 6th grade, I grew a little taller, grew a little braver, grew a little smarter. High jump was one of the first things I remember being determined to do without someone else telling me to do it first. It was my own deal, something I chose to do on my own. I wanted to succeed. And while I may or may not have succeeded at the actual high jump event, I succeeded in learning the kind of determination and work and effort it takes to do the things I want to do in my life.
It was a good lesson to learn before the strangest years of my life began and middle school started pummeling me in the face.
Mark dropped his bag to the ground and sat down on the bench. “I can do this. I will do this. I hope to God I can do this,” he said to himself. He unzipped the bag and all of his equipment fell to the ground. The rackets clanged against the hard surface and the tennis balls rolled under the bench. Mark sighed and stood to fetch the balls, but his leg tangled with the bag and he fell to the ground. When Dave arrived, Mark’s new rackets were already scratched and his knees were bloody.
“Really?” Dave asked, resisting the urge to laugh.
“Go ahead and laugh now because you won’t be laughing after,” Mark responded.
Dave raised his hands and his fingers jiggled. “Oooo I’m so scared.”
While Dave unpacked his gear, Mark put his shoes on and tied them tight and suited up with a headband and two sweatbands on each wrist. Bending over, his hamstrings were tight, but he reached as far as he could for his toes. He’d been stretching every day and every day he got a little closer.
Dave signaled that he was ready and the two of them walked onto the clay court. “You look like a pro,” Dave remarked. Mark was feeling good about tennis. He bought new equipment, spent time with a practice machine and watched endless hours of clips of tennis greats on YouTube. He studied their form and their technique, taking meticulous notes.
“Ready?” Dave asked, spinning his racket and bouncing a tennis ball. Mark nodded. “I’ll go easy on you,” he said as he threw the ball into the air and smacked it with his racket. The ball flew with such velocity that Mark had trouble tracking it. When it bounced on his side of the net, he squared his feet, like YouTube had taught him, and unloaded with a mighty swing.
The racket made a swishing sound as it cut through the air and missed the ball completely. As Mark’s momentum carried him forward, the ball hit him in the face.
“Dammit!” Mark yelled as Dave fell to the ground in laughter.
When Dave composed himself, Mark bounced the ball a few times and then threw it into the air for a serve. He missed. Then he missed again. And again. And Again. Even with corrective suggestions from Dave, he still couldn’t connect. In his mind, he was doing everything he had watched the pros do, but he just couldn’t get his body to mimic them. When he finally did connect, somehow the ball sailed backwards.
After a grueling two hours, the two of them sat down on the bench dripping with sweat.
“I suck. I can’t join your club tennis team,” Mark said.
“Yeah, I’d agree,” Dave said with a chuckle. “There are some other clubs you can join to play with us. What else can we try?”
“We’ve tried just about everything,” Mark said, shaking his head.
“Let’s try swimming again.”
“No way. I almost drowned that last time.” Mark still had nightmares about the pool.
“Golf?”
“No, I spent more time in the woods than on the fairway.”
“Ping-pong?”
Mark shook his head. “Just forget it. Some of us just aren’t cut out for this stuff.” He envied Dave who could pick up a sport after never even hearing about it and excel. Their freshman year they went bowling and he almost bowled a perfect game despite never touching a bowling ball before.
David downed the rest of a sports drink before standing. “Basketball,” he said. “We haven’t tried basketball. We are trying to get a team together for the campus basketball club soon.”
Mark felt a pang in his chest. Mark had loved basketball growing up and it was one of the few sports he wasn’t absolutely terrible at. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, those were his idols. Like all kids, he dreamed of playing in the NBA and the Olympics, but after being cut from the peewee squad, he fell out of love with the sport. It took some convincing, but Mark agreed to try.
In preparing to play with Dave, he revisited some of the greatest games his idols had played and taking notes of their forms and techniques. Finding an old basketball in his garage, he went down to the local court and took countless shots. Most of them fell short of the hoop or bounced off the rim, but he found himself improving and remembering why he loved the game. When the day came, he was feeling pretty good.
“Not a bad stroke,” Dave remarked, when he arrived at the court as Mark was warming up. “Shoot for ball.”
Mark stood behind the three point line, dribbling and staring at the basket. “I got this,” he said to himself. He squared his feet and launched the ball. It rotated through the air right on target to the basket and then fell a foot short.
“My ball. Play to twenty one, win by two,” Dave said.
When the game had ended, Dave had won by twenty one points. Truth be told, Dave went a little easy on Mark, giving him a number of open shots, but Mark never came close to hitting a shot. It didn’t matter how much he practiced or studied. He just couldn’t execute. He didn’t belong on the hardwood as a kid and he didn’t belong on the hardwood now.
“We’ll find something else,” Dave said afterwards.
Mark just shook his head. He was done with sports. There wasn’t a place for him in the athletic world. As they were gathering their gear, a middle aged man took to the court and started shooting around. His shots landed like bricks and clanged against the metal rim. One ball went astray and bounced towards Mark who had been eyeing the man while he packed.
“Your release is too low. You need to release from your fingertips to get the good rotation,” Mark said as he lobbed the ball back to the man. “Square your feet too to the hoop, too.” The man nodded graciously and positioned himself as Mark had suggested. It took a few moments, but soon the man began draining shots. His release looked good and his shots went in, hitting nothing but net.
“Wow,” the man said, walking over. “Thanks for the tips. Are you a coach?”
“No, I’m just a fan and a student of the game.”
“I’ve got this team of youngsters that I’m coaching and I’m completely overmatched. I could really use someone with some knowledge. Would you be interested?”
Mark’s face lit up and Dave nudged him with an elbow. “We might get you on the court after all,” he said.
Nice–I was wondering where this was going to go with Mark, the hopeless wannabe athlete. I’m glad he found his place.
I really really like this! A guy who has trouble executing but has all kinds of knowledge! I identify. A very unique sports story.
“In preparing to play with Dave, he revisited some of the greatest games his idols had played and taking notes on their forms and techniques.”
It seems to me you either need to match the verb tenses (“revisited . . and took notes”), or eliminate the conjunction and use a comma: “. . . games his idols had played, taking notes on their forms and techniques.”
Great story, motivating for those whose wisdom doesn’t necessarily mean physical grace or skill. Good work!
RUNNING AROUND IN CIRCLES by Tamyka Bell
Once you’ve been going for 36 hours, “running around in circles” starts to make a lot of sense. It’s everything else that seems a little absurd. Like the Caltex sign that glows like a low-hanging moon, lighting the tiniest patch of the 500 metre track. Or my clothing choice for the evening: black running tights, black thermal shirt, black jacket, black gloves, black balaclava. Just call me “ninja”.
Or the other runners, who sleepily zigzag across the track each time I run past, as if I’m draining the energy from their muscles. I jokingly suggest to Trevor and Dave that they jump on my “express train”. Trevor gives a weak laugh, but Dave only groans, wincing as he places each foot down ever-so-gently, as if onto shards of glass.
I stop by my crew table, where Joe sits rugged up in a sleeping bag and Chris stirs a glob of condensed milk into a mug of coffee. Calories and caffeine in one convenient, warm package. It smells good. It tastes good. But I can’t drink and run, so we walk. We talk, and I tell him that I feel good. He’s never seen people run for so long before; we’re testing the limits of human endurance, and Chris finds that exciting.
“You know, you’ll make 250 kays, easy.”
I nod. It’s a long way, and I don’t really want to think about it. Not just yet. I slurp the coffee instead, and clap another runner on the back, not to encourage him, but to wake him up. Micro-sleeps are an occupational hazard for ultramarathon runners.
Chris is still talking. “You could walk, and you’d still make it.”
“Yep.”
I’m normally a woman of many words, but not tonight. I used them up hours ago, when the sun finally sank below the horizon and the thought finally sank in that I was already halfway through my second straight day of running.
We come back past the table to find that Joe has dozed off. Let him snooze–he’s on the next shift. The graveyard shift. There’s no graveyard in this little village, but there is a morgue, tucked in behind the police station. Libby almost set up there, until someone suggested she might be dooming her race to failure. So she packed up and moved to the hospital. Libby’s been sick for most of the past 36 hours, so it’s probably a good thing she didn’t set up near the morgue. I’ve set up in a little garden that’s signposted “Wedding Area 2”, conveniently located opposite the toilet block.
Most of the runners seem oblivious to the energy that emanates from these buildings. I think it comes from the volunteers: local retirees who spend hours of their days, every day of the year, maintaining the venue, the displays and their hobbies. It’s a labour of love that sees them repainting the old cars in the garage and stoking the fire in the blacksmith’s cottage, a labour not dissimilar to that of the 48 hour crews, who patch up and feed their runners, hour after hour, ignoring their own needs.
One hour later, we change direction. It’s not quite the same as a change of scenery. Another hot drink–herbal tea this time–and some salty snacks to stave off the cramps.
A sore spot is developing on my left foot, so it’s time to go up another half shoe size. My feet are soft and squishy with fluid, but surprisingly free of blisters. They are covered in fine dust that has worked its way through the open weave of my shoes and socks. I take extra care to remove all the grit from between my toes, before struggling into clean compression socks and my fourth pair of shoes. I reattach the timing chip and waddle back onto the track–I’ve seized up a bit. It will be good to get moving.
When the silence gets too loud, I crank up the volume on my iPod. I belt out a few tunes in whatever key takes my fancy, to the horror of runners and spectators alike. I even dance a little, which must look a sight. I need more caffeine: I wash some chocolate-coated coffee beans down with hot tea, knowing that later I will rinse and spit out what looks like dregs from the plunger.
The sleep monsters catch me anyway, sending me to sleep six times during the lap. Joe clears a path to the tent, where I lie wrapped in a sleeping bag, flat on my belly for precisely five minutes. Then I’m circulating again, chasing a finish line that repeats on me every four minutes or so.
A tiny patch of colour starts to show on the parts of the horizon I can see between the buildings, so faint at first that I don’t quite believe my eyes. “I’m almost at 260 kays,” I tell Chris.
“I know.”
Crowds start filling the grounds again, to watch their loved ones finish. There’s no sign of my family; I’m alone, except for Joe. Maybe Mum was scared off by the way I stole her lunch yesterday.
My shin is starting to hurt: a muscle spasm. I push on, offering some words of encouragement as I pass a 24 hour competitor. In return, she offers words of praise: “You’re in third place behind two guys. The other girls can’t catch you. Congratulations–you’re the new Australian female 48hr champion.” It won’t sink in for a few days.
As the horizon releases its hold on the sun, I see Matt at the edge of the track. Finally! We kiss, and he walks a lap with me.
“Why aren’t you running?”
“It’s against the rules.” I thought he had known that: “Crew can only walk up to three laps at a time with their runner. I’m walking so you can come with me. I’ll run again soon.”
I’m pleased for the other runners, who have put on a burst of speed for the final two hours, yet appalled that they’ve still got so much in the tank. Matt asks why I’m shaking my head, and I explain: “They should have run more last night. I have nothing left–I’m spent.”
We stop by the table to massage my shin, but soon give up. The pain is no better and no worse, so I run. I point at the timing board as I cross the line for the 540th time, 270 kilometres, stunned that my body has kept going for so long.
The race staff hand me a block with my name on it–we’re in the last three minutes. When the siren sounds, I feel a sort of empty sorrow where there should be elation. I want to keep going, but it’s all over. I stop awkwardly with a little grunt and place the block down on the track so someone can measure how far I made it through this final, incomplete lap.
After the handshakes, hugs and congratulations, there comes a big, shiny trophy. It suddenly hits me: I have run 272.88 kilometres, and I am the national champion. Beyond this village, few will ever know–fewer still will care–but this weekend will stay with me forever.
This makes me exhausted just reading about it. It reminds me of Relay For Life. Great job, Tamyka!
It is very much like Relay For Life, with only one team member 😀
Then I will not be adding that to my bucket list. It’s something I’ll experience vicariously through your wonderful story.
Good gravy, I had no idea an event like this even existed. Congratulations!
We don’t get much publicity—unlike the Olympics—so that’s not surprising 😀
Great story! I love the flow of it and, like Katie, I’m exhausted just reading about it.
Thank you, Larissa.
I’m impressed by both the story AND the race. I enjoyed the writing, and congratulations to you for your finish!
flipping fantastic Tam – Tim
Your writing is as intelligent as your running, Tamyka. Congratulations on doing such a superb job with both of them!
Hi Sierra, I found your story really upsetting. It is well-written, and I’ve ended up worrying that college swimming is really like that. As a distance runner, I’ve felt the pressure to shed weight and I’ve chosen to ignore it; now I am one of the few who is not injured, and I believe it’s because of that decision. Great job.
Thank you, Tamyka. I am sorry that you had that pressure put on you, but I am so glad that you rose above it! Thank you for sharing your story with us and keep going storng 🙂
The Boy in the Striped Pants
By Sven Eric Wilson
In March of 1973, famed Indiana University basketball coach
Bobby Knight made his first journey to the Final Four. The basketball crazy state was in an
uproar. At least I imagine it was, given
what I have learned from watching Hoosiers. What I do remember, though, is trudging
across the hills of Bloomington by foot with my fellow second graders to see
the team’s bus depart for some far off locale. I never
saw the Hoosiers play. There was no
ESPN, and we didn’t have a TV anyway.
The other sporting event I do remember from that year spent in
Bloomington (which is also the location for another famous sports movie, Breaking Away) was on the baseball field
later that summer. I was able to get my parents to purchase a
mitt and sign me up for a T-ball league.
I remember spending hours breaking in my mitt. Others would say I did it wrong, that the
pocket was in the wrong place. But it felt
good. I still have that mitt.
In those days our sports options
were about as limited as the number of TV channels. There was no soccer, or gymnastics, or
lacrosse, or any other number of sissy sports.
There was football, baseball, and basketball. A few odd ducks did swimming or tennis, but
overall summer meant baseball. Soccer
is a sport much better suited for children.
It is friendly and egalitarian.
Everyone can run and kick. Indeed,
I like to tell my snooty academic friends—the kind who pretend to like soccer
or cycling for the same reasons they make condescending comments about Sarah
Palin or McDonalds—that soccer is a great children’s game. It is sort of like Hide and Seek or Kick the
Can, but with a ball. Everyone can do
it. No one cries.
Baseball involves lots of tears. I never broke down and cried on the field, but
I remember a few years after my T-ball experience crying in my bed at home. In a strangely precocious and self-aware
epiphany (I must have been 11 or so) I realized that I wasn’t ever going to be
a professional baseball player. My mother
tried to comfort me, though she must have been wondering where I ever got such
a notion in the first place. But what
did she know? She was European. She thought running and cross-country skiing
were sports.
I of course thought everyone
wanted to be a professional athlete.
That seemed to be the pinnacle of male prestige in our society, at least
as I saw it. I had learned to love
baseball from books. The book I returned
to over and over again was The Boy’s Life
Book of Baseball Stories. It told of
the heroic exploits on the Little League diamond, about boys who seemed to have
an uncanny ability to approximate real baseball. Most real baseball games with children
involve throwing the ball around a field where it is seldom hit and seldom
caught by anyone. I devoured old books
from the local library about baseball legends on the NY Yankees. Since we didn’t have a TV in my early days, I
was quite old before I realized that the Dodgers had moved to California decades
before. The Giants, too. This seemed wrong. I would follow those great Yankees teams of
the 70s. I still remember the thrill of
watching Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in one World Series game. I felt somehow vindicated.
I’m sure I could find a few faded
photos of that ’73 T-ball team. One of
them might even have the whole team in it, including The Boy in the Striped
Pants, which was the official name we used for him in my family. He was the shortstop, the big, brash,
athletic kid that everyone feared. Our
team had t-shirts and caps from some
long-forgotten local business sponsoring our team. But we had to come up with our own
pants. I’m sure I wore Toughskins jeans
from Sears, the kind that lasted extra long because they had “double knees,” a
patch that was pre-sewn into the knees to prevent holes. My mom always bought me Toughskins. If I wanted impractical pants, the kind without double knees, I could buy them
myself, my mother said. This I
eventually did in a moment of fashion despair in the 8th grade,
using the paltry earnings from my daily paper route.
The Boy in the Striped Pants did
not wear Toughskins. I’m pretty sure
they didn’t come in stripes, or bell-bottoms for that matter. He had the long messy hair common for boys in
the early 70s, and his face was freckled and usually dirty. Everyone knew the shortstop was what the
position that the best player got to play (at least in T-ball, where there is
no pitching.) I didn’t aspire to play
shortstop, but I desperately wanted to play first base. I was gaining confidence in my ability to
catch the ball, and the first baseman was the one who made the out, the one who
got the job done. The Boy in the Striped
Pants would field the ball, I would run to the base, put my right foot on it,
and stretch my gloved left hand out as far as possible, just in time to put out
the sprinting runner. First base was
where the action was.
I didn’t play first base. I was an outfielder, where the ball seldom
ventured in T-ball. But one day, our
manager came up to me and asked me what position I would like to play that
day. This was like manna from heaven, a
tender mercy of the Lord to a small, ordinary boy. I was so stunned, I couldn’t believe it. But before I could gather my wits and say “First
Base!” the Boy in the Striped Pants pipes in and says, “He wants to play
catcher.” My heart fell. In T-ball, no one cares about the
catcher. Since there is no pitcher,
there is little need for a catcher. The
manager, smiling kindly, leaned over and asked me if I really want to play
catcher.
As I look back on the past four
decades since that moment, I have the normal sorts of regrets, things said and
unsaid that I’d like to do over. I have had
good moments in sports, including baseball. I was not the kid picked first, nor was I the
one picked last. But my skills did not
match my aspirations, as is the case for most of us. What I can see now, from my middle-aged
perspective, is the outsized role that sports so often plays in society and how
profoundly we are shaped by the world we are thrust into and how rarely we
strike out on paths that are truly, if ever, self-directed.
Yes, I nodded, I wanted to play
catcher.
Sorry, readers. Pasting text into the comments form a Word Document results in messed up paragraphs. Oh well.
No worries. It’s really well-written, which is the most important thing. Nice job.
Don’t worry about the weird formatting, Sven. I just read this and loved it, particularly the ending. The mix of history, humor, and social commentary made for both an enjoyable and powerful read. Left me asking important questions about my own life, which is a very good sign of good writing.
Awesome ending! This should be mandatory reading for all parents when they sign their kids up for sports each season (reality check!!). 🙂
Very nice! I enjoyed your piece!
A wonderful read, and I like the blend of of the child and adult perspectives. A solid finish. My favourite line: “But what did she know? She was European. She thought running and cross-country skiing were sports.”
Somehow pasting my story into the comments from a Word Document resulted in the paragraphs being all messed up. Is there somewhere I can just send the Word Doc?
The arm of the director’s cut board snapped shut.
Football announcers Marcel and Zianya locked onto the camera lens, their
athletic sparkle practically bouncing off the golden orb of the World Cup that
was positioned on the table between their chairs.
“Well, Marcel, we sure have come a long way since the
first RoboCup of 1997,” said Zianya.
Marcel chuckled and ran a hand through his platinum mane
of hair. “I remember those days,” he said with a wink. “Our players looked more
like Transformers than athletes.”
The retro Transformers song surged in the background.
“And to think that you went from playing soccer with
mere toys to hosting the World Cup a mere thirty years later,” Zianya said.
“It has certainly been a privilege to watch the sport of
football – or soccer to you Yankees – evolve within the framework of my own
lifetime. And it is an even greater privilege to introduce our pre-match
interview.”
The stage spun and an undetectable door slid open. A
muscular man with bronzed skin and black braids that brushed the patina-yellow
fabric of his jersey stepped through. The announcers stood to shake his hand.
“Welcome, Josue, and thank you for giving us a moment of
your precious pre-match time,” gushed Zianya. A third chair rose from the floor
between the announcers. “Please take a seat.”
Josue murmured his thanks and climbed into the high
chair, directly overlooking the trophy.
“Josue, all bets are on that you will hoist this trophy
after tonight’s final match,” said Marcel.
“I will be fortunate if my goalie does, at any rate,”
replied Josue.
“You are one and the same, one and the same,” marveled
Zianya. “Let’s show the world what I mean.”
The filming cut to a three-minute short chronicling the
career of Josue Aquino. Born on the outskirts of Madrid, he played football on
the streets since the time he could run. He grew into a renowned goalie in the
region, an achievement trumped only by his dominance in the world robotics
arena. He had singlehandedly designed the goalie, identical to himself in
likeness, that had led Spain to this ultimate match of the first robotic World
Cup.
When the biography ended, Marcel said, “After decades of
corruption in all facets of elite athletics – doping technologies that outpace
testing capacities, players sponsored by athletic shoes but owned by Las Vegas,
and even untimely deaths of top competitors – it must bring you great pride to
usher in a new era, void of human vices and foibles. Can you tell us what this
means for the future?”
“I cannot think about tomorrow,” replied Josue. “Today’s
match is my only worry.”
“So true, so profound,” said Zianya. “We would all be
wise to follow these simple words offered by such a complex man. And with that,
we will wish you the best. The officials are now ushering the engineers to the
controllers’ benches on the sideline where I am sure you are eager to join your
squad.”
Amidst a flurry of customary parting wishes, the camera
faded out to a commercial break.
#
The anthems were broadcast through the stadium speakers
in digital perfection. In keeping with the technological air of the event, no
bands and no soloists were used, not that lyrics were needed for Spain’s seemingly
timeless Marcha Real. Nearly everything about the event was computer generated,
right down to the sea of fans, with the claim that virtual reality was now the
only reality.
“Fake fans have fewer riots,” was the overused joke of
the tournament that Marcel threw again at his millions of unseen home viewers.
The teams took to their respective halves of the field.
There were no referees; it was unnecessary to officiate a game that was
completely monitored by sensors embedded on the players and in the turf and
even woven into the goal nets. Indonesia had the kickoff, and their center sent
the ball in an arc to the exact place where his right wing’s stride would take
him by the time it hit the ground.
“Tell me these aren’t real men,” Marcel said to Zianya.
“Unbelievable,” she replied. “They are the embodiment of
human perfection.”
And she was right. The players’ calf muscles bulged
beneath light featherings of leg hair. They didn’t have the heavy plod or the
notorious “moonwalk” of robots past; their cleats dug into the turf, sending
clumps flying as they cut sharp turns. They even mopped sweat from their brows
and sucked from water bottles during time-out breaks.
At the final two minutes, the score was tied at an exhilarating
8-8.
“Gone are the days of boring 1-0 football victories,”
said Marcel.
Zianya agreed. “This excitement should bring a whole new
fan set to the game of soccer.”
The score increased to a nail biting 9-9, but the tie
held at the end of regulation play.
This score remained at the end of the overtime period, bringing
the match to a shootout.
Spain sent its highest goal scoring bot, number ten, to
the line. His controlling engineer did not look up as he orchestrated the shot
on the screen of his computer tablet. The Indonesian goalie blocked it.
As the Indonesian forward lined up behind the ball for
their attempt, all eyes were on Josue Aquino, the brilliant goalie controller
on the Spanish bench. He looked straight ahead.
“Marcel,” began Zianya, “is it legal for the controllers
to pre-program their goalie’s responses?”
“No, it is not,” said Marcel. “Yet Aquino does not
appear to be taking action.”
“Or, is he?” said Zianya. She pointed at the goalie. “What
is he doing?”
While the Indonesian goalie paced back his starting position,
the Spanish goalie pulled his bright yellow jersey over his head.
“Spain is acting like they have this game in the bag,”
said Marcel. “This would be a premature display of arrogance by any other
controller than the great Aquino. But instead, we are witnessing genius at
work.” The excitement in his voice mounted, and he grabbed Zianya by the hand. “We
are indeed ushering in a new age. The goalie’s control panel is invisible!”
On the field below the announcer’s box, below the
throngs of virtual fans, Spain’s goalie faced his oncoming Indonesian opponent,
shirtless. Josue Aquino had designed a true clone, all the way down to the tiny
remnant of umbilical scar tissue that budded from his navel. Athletic robots
housed their electronic controls in their uniform covered torsos; never before
had a true David of a bot been sculpted to this degree of human ideal.
The Indonsian bot launched the ball into the air, and
Josue Aquino’s bot leapt to catch it before it entered the corner of his net.
Then he walked with the ball, past his teammates, past the Indonesians, and set
it on the line facing the Indonesian goalie.
He looked up toward
Zianya and Marcel’s box. “This game is finished. And humanity wins.”
He took the shot and
scored. The crowd did not go wild, but the robots did. The engineer controllers
on the benches turned their bots on Josue. They pommeled him to death with
their titanium arms, all except for the true robot of Josue Aquino
who sat peacefully on the bench.
What an imaginative and creative glimpse into the future of sports- with robots! (Although I must say, this is a scary thought.) Well done!
Very, very good!
Greetings, friends! My submission is a little
unconventional, put I hope you appreciate where I was going. Thank you for this
great (FUN!) opportunity. Best, Donna Smaldone
—————————————————————-
The 1984 Buick Skylark carried five of us as it hurtled down
the rural road in excess of 100 miles per hour, wrapped around a tree, and
burst into flames. Only three would survive the impact. We were 16-years-old
when we laughed together for the last time.
Earlier that crisp October day, a mix of nervousness and
excitement prickled my neck as we readied ourselves for battle. We had home
field advantage in the win-or-go-home high school field hockey game and our
team was amped.
Outfitted with kilts, cleats, and an ambitious alliance, we
clustered around Coach Toad in a team huddle. Fusing our unique talents was
nothing new. We knew we weren’t the most skilled unit – but we were fast,
resilient, and in it together. Toad had baked a team mindset into us. And we
owned it.
Oblivious to the awkward, gangly teenagers others saw in
that circle, we were warriors standing 12 feet tall, fortified by fierce
determination. The same fierce determination my teammate Denise would use only
hours later to pull my clinging life from a car engulfed in 12-foot-high
flames.
Like dog owners “get” other crazy dog owners and service men
and women “get” others serving in the military, people who play competitive
sports “get” the team mindset.
It didn’t matter that I was on the sidelines due to injury
for that important sectionals game. The unspoken “I’ve got your back” assurance
was rampant from bench to field to winning goal. Ours.
Forming a not-so-straight line, we exchanged traditional
hugs-n-hand-slaps of congratulations with our worthy opponent for a game well
played. Win or lose, this was always my favorite parts about playing team
sports. Sportsmanship. Camaraderie.
Days later as I laid in traction in the intensive care unit
of Glens Falls Hospital, grappling with the guilt of survival, I received an
oversized greeting card. Signed by every member of the opposing field hockey
team, the card overflowed with hugs-n-hand-slaps of love, support, prayers, and
encouragement.
Through a blur of salty tears, I read every sentiment. Every
name. Most of the girls I didn’t even know. But their coach instilled in them
the very essence of competitive team sports – and the critical broader view
that follows the competition: friendship, camaraderie, compassion. They “got”
it.
In many ways, I credit the broad brush of teamwork for the
health of my survival these past 25 years. It wasn’t about survival or even who
did or didn’t survive. It was about living life by embracing it with the same
fierce determination I learned playing field hockey.
The memories I cherish most don’t come from our team’s
Win-Loss record. They come from the bonds we built… The way we pretended half
of us were deaf, the other half sign language translators when we stopped at a
McDonalds after an away game. The way Toad braved an overnight with the entire
field hockey team at her house, setting us loose in the neighborhood for a
scavenger hunt. The many songs we went hoarse singing together on the bus.
We challenged and pushed each other to achieve the highest
potential, both as a team and as individuals. We cheered each other on in
whatever way we could. For our boys’ soccer team, it was by donning
cheerleading skirts and shaking pom poms the day of our big sectionals
win.
Through stories and discussion, ache and adulation — but
mostly through the freedom with which they are exchanged — our journey as a
unified, team-minded front will solidify lifelong friendships and build souls
of love, courage, and freedom.
I really like what you’ve done with this story, Donna.
Thank you, Katie! I love how you have “coffee shop dweller” in your bio — awesome! I blog here if you want to check it out: http://www.donnasmaldone.com/
This makes me want to go out and join a team and I am NOT sporty at all!!! I love some of your images here – the gangly teenagers as warriors, deaf in McDonalds… but that line about the last time you laughed together stands out to me the most. Is this a true story?
The PDW World Championships
“You are looking LIVE at the
Glidden Arena in beautiful downtown Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We are back and well
into hour thirteen in what has been, thus far, an EPIC Final match of the World
Paint Drying Watching Championships. I am Tom Block; joining me once again is
my esteemed colleague and living LEGEND, three-time PDW World Champion Bruce “Death
Stare” Belkin. Well, DS—then there were two.”
“Indeed, Tom, indeed. It has all
come down to this: A re-match of last year’s World Final—Morimoto Sakura of
Japan, now the defending World Champ, versus the man who came thiiiiis close to
winning it all last year, the USA’s own Doug Blaine.”
“Yes, who could forget that scene
last year—Blaine pouncing on his buzzer about half-way through hour sixteen,
only to have the judges do the white glove test…I believe we have a clip of
that moment…and there it is. The glove peels off Blaine’s ultimately
still-tacky surface with paint on it…and just look at Blaine’s face when he
sees that paint on the judge’s glove.”
“That is the look of COMPLETE and
UTTER DEVASTATION, Tom. To get that far—the Final match of the World
Championships—and jump the gun, calling the paint dry too soon…”
“Safe to say that Blaine is
seeking redemption here tonight?”
“Tom, I think that’s an
understatement. I think Blaine’s been seeking redemption since the moment he
saw that paint-stained glove one year ago.”
“Speaking of which, as the camera
pans in on our competitors, still focused intently on their boards, DS, if you
could once again give us a basic run-down of how competitive PDW works for our
viewers at home who may be new to the sport.”
“Absolutely, Tom. PDW works like this: At the beginning of each
match, both competitors are given an identical board. They’re told of what
types of material the board is comprised—wood, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum,
what have you—and they are given five minutes to inspect their boards.
Sometimes the board is primed, sometimes it is not. If it is primed, the
competitors are told what type of primer was used—more often than not, it’s a
basic water-based latex coat—and how many coats of primer were applied.
The watchers’ boards are then painted
simultaneously by two highly-trained professionals to insure an even coat on
both boards. The watchers are given a summary of what type of paint is used—water-
or oil-based, the name of the color of paint, the brand, how many coats are
being applied, what types of brushes are being used, etc. The watchers are
allowed to observe the painting, and then once it is complete, the whistle
blows and the watching of the drying begins.
The watchers’ job at that point
is to watch—using their knowledge of paints, surfaces, and how different paints
are likely to dry on different materials in different environments—and figure
out, as best they can, when their paint is dry.
And here’s where it gets tricky,
Tom. Once the watcher has determined his paint is dry, he hits his buzzer to
signal the judges. BUT, to win, you HAVE to be the first competitor to signal.
If you and your competitor’s boards are both dry and he signals first, you’re
out of luck.
HOWEVER—and this is what happened
last year to Blaine—when you signal, the judges give your board the white glove
test, and if the paint is still wet or even just tacky and ANY of it comes off
on the glove? You’re DONE—DISQUALIFIED, and your opponent automatically wins.
So in addition to the wealth of
knowledge needed to compete, there is also strategy involved. Faking a move
towards the buzzer to distract your opponent, hoping they’ll take the bait and
buzz in prematurely? Bluffing, and holding back from buzzing even when you
think your board’s dry just to get inside the head of your opponent? All part
of the game.”
“Absolutely a lot going on, DS,
even when to the untrained eye it just appears as though they’re only staring.”
“Definitely, Tom. I can tell you
from experience those two look stone-faced right now, but their minds are
RACING.”
“Speaking of stone-faced, check
it out as we zoom in on Sakura: That is the ESSENCE of focus, is it not?”
“Oh yeah, big time. They don’t
call Sakura “Mr. Roboto” for nothing. The man is a focus MACHINE.”
“And as we pan to Blaine, he’s no
slouch in the focus department himself.”
“Absolutely not. You know, Tom,
Blaine is such an interesting story: He came into last year’s tournament on
absolutely NO ONE’S radar, only to knock off no less than Thomas Anderss of
Belgium—last year’s defending World Champ—in the FIRST ROUND, and he just
really cruised on that momentum all the way to last year’s Final. No one
expected it; I don’t think Blaine even expected it. But getting so close yet
being so far last year changed Blaine. He’s a COMPETITOR now, you know? You
just see that fire in his eyes. He wants this bad.”
“And you know who else wants it
bad? Morimoto Sakura. Earlier this week before the Championships started,
Sakura was quoted in the Japanese press saying he thought many of the other
competitors, Blaine included, looked “soft”. Sakura later claimed the remarks
were taken out of context, but the Championships have been abuzz with the
controversy. DS, do you think Sakura is arrogant? Do you think Blaine is using
those words to fuel his competitive fire?”
“Well, Tom, I think arro—”
“DS, sorry to interrupt, but
Sakura’s pit crew is racing out to him with the latest Arena Report, trailed by
Blaine’s crew…Sakura’s crew looking very animated as they discuss—SAKURA’S HIT
HIS BUZZER! HE’S HIT THE BUZZER, AND IT’S THE MOMENT OF TRUTH! And you just saw
Blaine lunge for his own buzzer a fraction of a second too late; Sakura
recorded his buzz first and the judges are now going to give the defending
champ’s board the white glove test—it’s all going to be over in a few short minutes,
folks, one way or another!”
“And look at how dejected Blaine
looks, Tom. It’s out of his hands. He OBVIOUSLY didn’t want it to be this way.”
“The pit crews for the
competitors assist the watchers in taking readings of the space in which they
compete, measuring temperature, humidity, things like that. They are allowed to
present their watcher with an Arena Report once an hour, and there must have
been something remarkable in that latest—”
“Tom, the judges are applying the
glove to Sakura’s board…”
“It is CLEAN! SAKURA’S BOARD IS
CLEAN AND HE IS A BACK-TO-BACK WORLD PAINT DRYING WATCHING CHAMPION!
UNBELIEVABLE! What a left turn this Final took; it was slow going for
hours, and then…”
“Wow, and you gotta feel for
Blaine. Last year, buzzing too soon, this year, not soon enough. He is making a
beeline for the locker room. It doesn’t look like he wants to talk to his crew
or ANYONE, and you know, I can’t blame him, Tom. It’s just heart-breaking.”
“It is, it really is. But we will
try to get a few words with the stunned Doug Blaine, as well as with the newly
crowned repeat World Champion Morimoto Sakura when we come back to the Glidden
Arena here on ESPN Extreme Paint Sports. Stay tuned.”
The PDW World Championships
“You are looking LIVE at the
Glidden Arena in beautiful downtown Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We are back and well
into hour thirteen in what has been, thus far, an EPIC Final match of the World
Paint Drying Watching Championships. I am Tom Block; joining me once again is
my esteemed colleague and living LEGEND, three-time PDW World Champion Bruce “Death
Stare” Belkin. Well, DS—then there were two.”
“Indeed, Tom, indeed. It has all
come down to this: A re-match of last year’s World Final—Morimoto Sakura of
Japan, now the defending World Champ, versus the man who came thiiiiis close to
winning it all last year, the USA’s own Doug Blaine.”
“Yes, who could forget that scene
last year—Blaine pouncing on his buzzer about half-way through hour sixteen,
only to have the judges do the white glove test…I believe we have a clip of
that moment…and there it is. The glove peels off Blaine’s ultimately
still-tacky surface with paint on it…and just look at Blaine’s face when he
sees that paint on the judge’s glove.”
“That is the look of COMPLETE and
UTTER DEVASTATION, Tom. To get that far—the Final match of the World
Championships—and jump the gun, calling the paint dry too soon…”
“Safe to say that Blaine is
seeking redemption here tonight?”
“Tom, I think that’s an
understatement. I think Blaine’s been seeking redemption since the moment he
saw that paint-stained glove one year ago.”
“Speaking of which, as the camera
pans in on our competitors, still focused intently on their boards, DS, if you
could once again give us a basic run-down of how competitive PDW works for our
viewers at home who may be new to the sport.”
“Absolutely, Tom. PDW works like this: At the beginning of each
match, both competitors are given an identical board. They’re told of what
types of material the board is comprised—wood, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum,
what have you—and they are given five minutes to inspect their boards.
Sometimes the board is primed, sometimes it is not. If it is primed, the
competitors are told what type of primer was used—more often than not, it’s a
basic water-based latex coat—and how many coats of primer were applied.
The watchers’ boards are then painted
simultaneously by two highly-trained professionals to insure an even coat on
both boards. The watchers are given a summary of what type of paint is used—water-
or oil-based, the name of the color of paint, the brand, how many coats are
being applied, what types of brushes are being used, etc. The watchers are
allowed to observe the painting, and then once it is complete, the whistle
blows and the watching of the drying begins.
The watchers’ job at that point
is to watch—using their knowledge of paints, surfaces, and how different paints
are likely to dry on different materials in different environments—and figure
out, as best they can, when their paint is dry.
And here’s where it gets tricky,
Tom. Once the watcher has determined his paint is dry, he hits his buzzer to
signal the judges. BUT, to win, you HAVE to be the first competitor to signal.
If you and your competitor’s boards are both dry and he signals first, you’re
out of luck.
HOWEVER—and this is what happened
last year to Blaine—when you signal, the judges give your board the white glove
test, and if the paint is still wet or even just tacky and ANY of it comes off
on the glove? You’re DONE—DISQUALIFIED, and your opponent automatically wins.
So in addition to the wealth of
knowledge needed to compete, there is also strategy involved. Faking a move
towards the buzzer to distract your opponent, hoping they’ll take the bait and
buzz in prematurely? Bluffing, and holding back from buzzing even when you
think your board’s dry just to get inside the head of your opponent? All part
of the game.”
“Absolutely a lot going on, DS,
even when to the untrained eye it just appears as though they’re only staring.”
“Definitely, Tom. I can tell you
from experience those two look stone-faced right now, but their minds are
RACING.”
“Speaking of stone-faced, check
it out as we zoom in on Sakura: That is the ESSENCE of focus, is it not?”
“Oh yeah, big time. They don’t
call Sakura “Mr. Roboto” for nothing. The man is a focus MACHINE.”
“And as we pan to Blaine, he’s no
slouch in the focus department himself.”
“Absolutely not. You know, Tom,
Blaine is such an interesting story: He came into last year’s tournament on
absolutely NO ONE’S radar, only to knock off no less than Thomas Anderss of
Belgium—last year’s defending World Champ—in the FIRST ROUND, and he just
really cruised on that momentum all the way to last year’s Final. No one
expected it; I don’t think Blaine even expected it. But getting so close yet
being so far last year changed Blaine. He’s a COMPETITOR now, you know? You
just see that fire in his eyes. He wants this bad.”
“And you know who else wants it
bad? Morimoto Sakura. Earlier this week before the Championships started,
Sakura was quoted in the Japanese press saying he thought many of the other
competitors, Blaine included, looked “soft”. Sakura later claimed the remarks
were taken out of context, but the Championships have been abuzz with the
controversy. DS, do you think Sakura is arrogant? Do you think Blaine is using
those words to fuel his competitive fire?”
“Well, Tom, I think arro—”
“DS, sorry to interrupt, but
Sakura’s pit crew is racing out to him with the latest Arena Report, trailed by
Blaine’s crew…Sakura’s crew looking very animated as they discuss—SAKURA’S HIT
HIS BUZZER! HE’S HIT THE BUZZER, AND IT’S THE MOMENT OF TRUTH! And you just saw
Blaine lunge for his own buzzer a fraction of a second too late; Sakura
recorded his buzz first and the judges are now going to give the defending
champ’s board the white glove test—it’s all going to be over in a few short minutes,
folks, one way or another!”
“And look at how dejected Blaine
looks, Tom. It’s out of his hands. He OBVIOUSLY didn’t want it to be this way.”
“The pit crews for the
competitors assist the watchers in taking readings of the space in which they
compete, measuring temperature, humidity, things like that. They are allowed to
present their watcher with an Arena Report once an hour, and there must have
been something remarkable in that latest—”
“Tom, the judges are applying the
glove to Sakura’s board…”
“It is CLEAN! SAKURA’S BOARD IS
CLEAN AND HE IS A BACK-TO-BACK WORLD PAINT DRYING WATCHING CHAMPION!
UNBELIEVABLE! What a left turn this Final took; it was slow going for
hours, and then…”
“Wow, and you gotta feel for
Blaine. Last year, buzzing too soon, this year, not soon enough. He is making a
beeline for the locker room. It doesn’t look like he wants to talk to his crew
or ANYONE, and you know, I can’t blame him, Tom. It’s just heart-breaking.”
“It is, it really is. But we will
try to get a few words with the stunned Doug Blaine, as well as with the newly
crowned repeat World Champion Morimoto Sakura when we come back to the Glidden
Arena here on ESPN Extreme Paint Sports. Stay tuned.”
This is hysterical, Brian. Too funny. Great dialogue & voice. I jinxed you last time by “liking” yours so I’ll just say that you get my “like” right here in the comments without actually touching my arrow cursor to the little gray word. No one will ever notice. Our secret.
Hey, thanks! And thanks for (not, but secretly) liking it.
Hi Brian, I’ve been watching wall-to-wall Olympics here in Ireland, must have missed this one. Though perhaps the competition is too long to televise? I’m definitely thinking of entering in Rio! But at least poor old Blaine got the silver.
It’ll be an interest competition in Rio–what with the tropical locale leading to more humidity and longer drying times. Then again, “summer” in the Northern Hemisphere is winter in Rio, so maybe the humidity wouldn’t be so bad…huh, it’s sure to be a challenge, even for world-class paint drying watchers!
Brian. You are out of control.
Brian, this is hilarious!! Well done! I love the realistic commentator dialogue , and the way you’ve given credibility to this “sport.”
Looking forward to the IOC adding PDW to the event listing!
Thank you!
very original and interesting indeed. however, I would say you have too much explaining at one point. the part where one commentator explains how Paint Sport works should have shorter, split into parts or somehow subtly hinted to the reader… it looks a bit clumsy this way
Yeah, I hear ya. That’s definitely the thing about this I liked the least myself: Too much exposition. I’m sure with some revising I could fix that or at least improve it a bit. By the time I came up with an idea I liked to submit for this, though, I didn’t have enough time to revise as much as I would’ve liked before the deadline. Eh, something I can do some other time, I guess. Thanks for your feedback!
Wow! This reads really easily and quickly. It’s such a funny premise that you hooked me from the start, and you’ve executed it really well. And now, at a time when I’ve been listening to commentator drivel for over a week (in Australia, it really is drivel), I imagined this commentary team was more like one of the great cricket or cycling teams. It worked really well and was the written equivalent of a very good radio show.
Just to give you some very personal feedback, I thought the bit that didn’t fit so well was the action bit, the bit outside the dialogue, with the pit crews running out. It’s very unusual to have a short story presented in dialogue only, because they usually need action—it’s one of those “rules”. However, I believe that commentary is one of the few forms of dialogue that truly CAN tell all of the action without needing to break out of it, and you’ve done it well, and I think that being ENTIRELY dialogue would be even just that little bit quirkier.
Thank you! And the story actually is presented entirely in dialogue…when the pit crews come running out, it’s the commentators explaining and commenting on the action. It’s probably hard to tell it’s all dialogue what with the the formatting being all wonky. Thanks for the feedback!
Ah—you’re right, it was the formatting. And now that I “see” it as part of the dialogue, it flows better for me 😀
This is hysterical. Very imaginative. I think you’ve listened to a good bit of commentary– you did such a good job with it. I stayed with the story, you kept me reading.
Thanks! I didn’t watch a ton of the Olympics, and I’m not a huge sports fan in general, but the Olympic commentary cracked me up (particularly during the men’s and women’s gymnastics)–the melodramatic tone always makes me laugh–and my attempt was to imitate that as best I could.
So clever Brian! That was a good chuckle but also impressive how you actually made this piece work. At first I wondered how you were going to fill an entire story with paint drying but you did! Good job!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
Dag flub it! Jacked up formatting AGAIN. Sorry, everyone–hope it’s still somewhat readable. Anyone know how to copy and paste from a Word doc and NOT have this happen?
Brian, when I copy from word, everything looks right in the comment window but it will post in one big blurb if I do not put hard returns in at each new paragraph, even if they are showing an indent. It is a drag. I think we all are in the same boat here, if that is any consolation 🙂 .
Thanks…it’s more of a minor annoyance than anything, but still an annoyance. I’ll try messing with it and adding hard returns next time.
What I do is write on word and then copy onto a text editor. Then I copy onto the site ‘as plain text’ and it comes out right. When I don’t do that, it’s a nightmare.
Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind for next time.
I put in the returns myself. I also love the edit button to fix it after it’s published.
Yeah, I’ll have to try putting in the returns myself next time and see if that takes care of it.
The Star
As the runners took their marks, I questioned my decision, my
argument. I watched Brennan and silently prayed that he’d be able to make it
through the race. From the look on Mrs. Parson’s face, she was sure he
wouldn’t. That was her argument against letting him run. But I was adamant:
cerebral palsy would not prevent my son from running in the Jonesboro
Elementary School Olympics.
The starter fired and Brennan looked up, confused. That’s
when I first felt it, the crowd shouted for him to run. So he did. He ran full
blast for about eight steps before he stumbled. His shoe was untied. It didn’t
stop Brennan. He continued to flail down the track, tripping over himself as he
went. It was quite precious.
As the other runners rounded onto their second lap, Brennan
saw me and waved. He looked up and stepped on his own shoelace. I waved back
but he missed it. He was too busy falling to the ground. He stood as the first
runner lapped him.
Behind the first runner was a mob of Brennan’s classmates,
each one hoping to break away from the crowd. Brennan’s uncontrolled legs
tripped three different runners. Two called him a dirty name and continued
their race. The third planted his foot on Brennan’s shoelace, and Brennan
crashed to the pavement for the second time.
The tears welled in my eyes. I regretted what I was making
him go through. He had wanted to run so badly.
“Momma, I’m gonna be a star,” he told me every day. Every
day I told him he’s already a star. But if this was his chance to prove it to
himself, I wanted what he wanted. But maybe Mrs. Parson was right. When I
scanned the sidelines, it wasn’t Mrs. Parson I found moving towards the track.
It was Mr. Holland, Brennan’s third grade teacher, making deliberate strides
towards my scraped-up son.
Mr. Holland double-knotted Brennan’s shoe laces and he spoke
words of encouragement to my son. I couldn’t hear from the stands but, no
matter what they were, I knew his words were exactly what Brennan needed to
hear. He pulled Brennan to his feet.
As the first runners crossed the finish line, my Brennan
continued his race with perseverance. The cheers weren’t for the first-place runner
who had stomped on Brennan’s shoelace. The cheers were for Mr. Holland, now
jogging alongside Brennan. The cheers were for Brennan. My son, the star.
Noticing the chanting wasn’t his name, the winning runner
stepped up his antics and began “Bolt-ing” and victory dancing in front of the
stands. No one was watching. Our eyes were fixed on the gaggle of exhausted
students forming around Brennan. One by one his classmates abandoned their own
race and fell into step behind Brennan.
The scowl on Mrs. Parson’s face turned into a smile as she
too joined the mob surrounding my son. They applauded, they cheered, they
encouraged, and they allowed my Brennan to be the second person to cross the
finish line. No one cared that he only ran one lap rather than two. He ran it.
He did was no one thought he could do. He’s a star.
Tears of joy ran down my face as I joined the crowd gathering
on the track. The sea parted, allowing me passage to my winning son.
“I
did it, Momma, I did it! I’m a star,” Brennan said.
“You
are a star, Brennan. You’ve always been a star.” I tried not to smother him
with kisses in front of his friends.
The
kid who tripped him appeared beside Brennan, gold medal in hand.
“You
deserve this.” He handed the medal to Brennan.
I
didn’t think it was possible until it happened but Brennan’s smile got bigger.
He hugged his classmate with his left hand and held the medal over his head
with his right.
“Take
a pitcher, Momma,” he said.
The
captured the moment with my camera to be printed and framed on our fridge, Mr.
Holland in the background, exactly where he’d want to be. There are no words
adequate for thanking Mr. Holland. I am beyond grateful.
My
Brennan won an Olympic gold medal. But it’s Mr. Holland and the rest of
Brennan’s fans who deserve it. They’re all stars in my book.
Aww, I love Brennan and Mr. Holland. Thanks for sharing them with us 🙂 .
Thanks, Steph. I love them too. 🙂
I loved this. So heartwarming. Stories like this are Olympian, in my book. 🙂
Thanks, Anna!
This story had me blinking back tears. Not much room for improvement in there 🙂 Well done.
Thanks, Tamyka. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Well, maybe I did. 😉
Katie, I thought about writing something similar, since I have a boy with autism and I often think about such things. I was trying to figure out if this piece was fiction or non-fiction.. But judging from your blog, it’s fiction, yes?
Hey, Jason. Yes, this piece is fiction. I was inspired by a similar story I saw in the form of a YouTube video. As for your son, I have a friend with autism and she’s one of the most inspiring people I know.
I hope Mr. Holland’s at least going to get a big year-end bonus or something. Nice job.
I’ll put in a good word with his principal. 😉
You did a really good job of making something that could have been a very hallmark moment into something real and beautiful. Well done, Katie!
Thanks, Zoe. I was worried about it being cheesy.
Track of Fire
I remember the cool summer night we were sitting by the fire
pit outdoors, the stars above twinkling shyly, hiding and peeking behind the
curtain of night. We wondered aloud which past souls were spying on us.
Sparks and ashes flew; we stoked the fire with a large stick
keep it burning as we talked late into the night. That was the night his heart
split open, like the logs. I caught his words in my hands and held them, and as
the night grew darker, his soul grew brighter.
Him, baring his soul, was as beautiful as the blazing fire.
My soul warmed up to his, and I felt safe. Him, sharing yourself with me, things
no one else knew. It was when he told me everything, his life story, and his dream,
that I wanted to cry– cry real tears, the kind of tears that make me feel as
if all is right with the world.
We both cried that day.
We could hear the blast of
fireworks in the distance, the sound of applause and delight filling the air.
Real words, full of our real
lives, is what we kept tossing into the fire that night, and we watched the
blaze get higher, extend toward the sky, above our heads. It was the fuel of
our selves– our breath holding magic air. We spoke words of fire, and our
souls lit.
In the daylight, the firelight was
dim, but our eyes were not. We walked through the flames of our words and
lived.
And then the next day, he left.
***
I heard about him on the news, after that. How he won this
trial, or that one. “Olympic hopeful,” they said. When they mentioned his name,
I heard the fire hissing and saw ashes flying and my stomach hurt, sometimes
doubling over. Desire knows no boundaries.
It happened, we all know. He made it, winning medal, after
medal, after medal– blood, sweat, and tears, transformed into circles of gold
in his hands. He smiled, winked, charmed, and looked happy. I reached out to
the screen to touch his hand when you waved. The newest super-athlete. A hero.
A household name. Him.
When he came home, and we talked, I could see the glint in
his eyes; how his eyes had turned colors— and I had to look away to avoid the
burn.
***
He is sitting there, at the end of the walk at the crest of
the hill, in his usual spot, staring into the open sky in front of him. The
lawn is sweet green, soft and cut low. Yellow and pink flowers bloom in
mulch-filled beds. The trees offer patches of shade. Below the hill is a small neighborhood park
where children gather each night in the summer, swinging, sliding and singing.
He watches, silently.
I watch him, when he doesn’t know I’m looking. I watch the single
flume of gray smoke.
It was soon after he came home for good, that he gave me the
key. Until then, he had kept the key on a chain around his neck, hidden under
his shirt. He still trusted me with his secrets. He told me not to open the box
until… well, he said he’d tell me when it was time.
Today was the day. I took the key and turned the lock to the
small box, then lifted the lid.
And there they were— all of them, in all medal colors: gold,
silver, bronze. Catching a bit of the sun, the glow hurt my eyes.
After the accident he hadn’t spoken much. About anything.
But this? What did it mean? Why did he want them, now?
He asks for the medals and places them in a small pouch. He
asks me to take him down to the park; it is such an odd request from him, a
person so resigned, quiet, within himself, to ask for anything unless
absolutely necessary.
Yet, he did, so I acquiesce.
I push his chair down the hill to the playground and we stop
to watch the children play. The faintest smile brushes his face.
He opens a small pouch he has with him. He removes one of
the medals from the bag anbd places it around his neck. Then, he takes another and places it around
his neck also. Then, another, and another, until he has five gold medals around
his neck.
Curious children begin to notice, glance his direction, whisper
to one another, smile and peek. Finally a brave young girl walks up to him and
asks him why he is wearing medals around his neck.
And he tells her. He tells her that before he needed wheels
to walk, he ran as if he were flying on air. He tells her that he used to be
the fastest mover on planet earth. And would she like to challenge him to find
out? He winks, and laughs. A tear spills down my cheek.
The girl’s eyes get big and I am stunned and wonder if he
has lost something more than the use of his lower limbs.
“But, you’re not that old. How old are you?” she asks.
“No… ” his voice trailed off.
In his eyes I could see his mind reviewing his life, how the
dream began, and how the Olympic torch became a scorching symbol of loss, and
how seeing an oval track made him feel like hell would be running in the same circles
forever and never being able to stop and feeling his feet burn.
“Here,” he says, handing the girl one of the medals. “It’s
yours.”
The girl’s eyes get even larger and her mouth pops open. She
quickly breaks into a smile and squeal of joy, taking the medal before the man
could change his mind.
She didn’t question or return the gift. She simply accepted
it, and ran off with her new prize.
He laughs and looks at me.
I smile back. The sun is large and low in the sky, as if to
mock the gold circles around his neck by saying, “Some gold circles will always
be bigger.”
But this time, I’m not so sure Sun is winning the round. Sun
may fall from the sky one day, but that girl will never forget.
He removes the medals from his neck and places them back in
his pouch.
“Here,” he says. “They’re yours. They always were.”
And his eyes reflect the sepia brown of the trees around us,
the brown eyes I used to know.
Of Pools and Ponds
4am. Go to sleep she scolds herself.
It’s no use. She hadn’t slept and lying awake under the buzzing crush of thoughts would only drive her mad. Hauling herself out of bed, she dresses, pulling jeans and a sweater over her swimsuit. The world is cast in the orange glow of the street lamps. The orange and white lights of the donut shop two blocks down call to her. She orders a double chocolate glaze. Coach wouldn’t approve. She orders five more and a large coffee with three cream, two sugar and a shot of butterscotch syrup for good measure.
Every day is off season now, so let the good times roll. She toasts the streetlamp with a raspberry donut, icing sugar scattering in a puff from her sticky hand.
5am. She slumps into a heap on the beach by the lake, clutching her box of donuts and coffee like a prize.
Yesterday’s bitter failure replays for the hundredth time. She had been unable to wipe it from her mind the way she had wiped the icing from her sticky fingers.
Take your marks, bang!
When the starter’s pistol had gone off, she hit the water like heat lightning. Fifty meters, a graceful turn and an explosion into the next length. One hundred and fifty meters, every stroke a beauty, every pull exact. Two hundred meters, diving hard into the finish. Masterful timing, not a stroke wasted, not a breath out of place.
Perfection.
Except it wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, Beth” Coach Adams had said, “you didn’t make the qualifying time. We just can’t carry you anymore. I’m sure you understand.”
Sure, she had understood. Coach was desperate to win the national championship to secure his job and boost alumni donations.
6am. The sun drops orange and yellow crystals into the still lake. Impulsively, she hurls the old-fashioned plain donut into the calm water, scattering the diamond and amber drops. The shattered light shatters her long-practiced indifference and a fistful of stones follow the pastry, careening one after the other into the spiteful face of the lake.
“One second off the pace!” she screams, hot blood finally rising like foam to the surface. “How can it end over one second! It’s not possible, it’s…not…I can’t…”
Sobbing, she pounds her fists into the rocky beach. Her hands are bruised and bleeding and it doesn’t occur to her to care.
“Carry me, he says? I’m the freaking pace car for cripe’s sake!”
I’ll show him.
Stripping to her suit, she plunges into the lake, and sets off at full race pace, following the shoreline east.
“I’ll make him see. I am enough!” Her shouts are swallowed up in the vastness of the lake.
The hours pass as she puts five, and then ten kilometers between her and searing memory. After 20 km she collapses on the shore and falls into fitful sleep.
She dreams of ponds and frogs. She is a little girl diving for shells and shiny pebbles. She is diving from her daddy’s shoulders into the deep end of the pond. She swims like a minnow, following her daddy. They are uncatchable, liquid silver and speed.
6am. She takes to the water again, swallowing up the lake five kilometers at a time. Ten and then twenty-five kilometers pass through expert fingers.
Her fingers dip down into the cool underbelly, where the water is black and mysterious. His face flashes beneath her in the dark. She screams, creating a torrent of bubbles, the sound muted in her ears. Thrashing arms and legs, she tries to shatter the moving pictures in her brain.
“Just keep swimming, leave it behind.” She coaches herself the way he would have done. Before she had ruined everything.
She loses her form in the water, her strength faltering. She sinks, leaden with the weight of memory into the day she had failed him. She is fourteen again, training with her father in concrete pools. Her father hangs his head and looks away when she misses the provincial qualifying time by 0.55 seconds.
A week later he had packed a bag and a cardboard box and was gone.
Endless days pass on the lake. She loses track of the distance she has covered.
She drags herself out of the water each twilight and collapses on the shore. She can barely raise her head but sleep refuses to overtake her.
She watches the scene over again, begging for darkness and silence to spare her.
“Daddy, please don’t go.”
She had chased him down the driveway. He closed the car door behind him. She can remember the click as he locked it.
“Please, I can do better. I can be faster”
He had put the sedan in reverse and backed out, her palms making a squealing sound as they slid across the glass. Her knees hit the ashphalt. The sharp stones cut into her palms. Stinging, liquid salt had splashed the ground in huge drops.
The orange street lamps had replaced the dying light in the West. Blood and grit and salt had mixed together on the driveway as his tail-lights turned west and faded out of sight.
The curtain fell back across the window where her mother had been watching.
I wasn’t good enough to make him stay.
The days became weeks and a month passed on the lake. She was 500km from home. Her memory was drawn away in the current. Her finger nails were long, her skin dark from the sun, her hair a tangled mane twined with seaweed. Her eyes had become set like stone. An animal’s eyes, lit from behind with an ancient fire.
She was empty of everthing but the cool of the water, the sweetness of apples and berries and the soothing light that filtered through the willow trees.
One day, she heard a gull calling over the lake. The cry was sharp and sad, not the habitual raucous cry of ownership and taunting. This was a cry of loss, a mother’s cry. Where was the fledgling she was calling for?
Remembrance came to her. She became the five year-old child nestled in her mother’s lap, gentle hands untangling copper hair. She had wished to become a fish so she could live and play in the pond all day.
“You’re a little girl,” her momma had said “not a fish. You can play in the water, but you have to live on the land. Always come home for dinner and I’ll wash the seaweed from your hair.”
She became the teenager sitting with the mother, strangers under one roof. She saw again those grey eyes filled with disapproval at the window before the curtain fell.
The gull cried again. Piercing, grey, deeply grieved.
The world came back to her. The animal wildness left her eyes. Crystal drops slid down her tanned cheek, cutting tracks in the dirt. An ache grabbed her heart. Guilt, not stale but fresh, seized her. I got my wish.
When the light angled itself toward its rest in the West she rose and ran through the trees until she found the road and a house. In two hours her mother was there. Her mother said nothing as she began to pull the seaweed from the tangles in her daughter’s hair.
That’s a really beautiful story. I was a little confused to the timing at first, regarding how many kilometres she swam and how long she had slept for. It wasn’t immediately clear to me that a whole day had passed—please excuse my sloppy reading. Your imagery is delightful.
Thank you tamyka!
I can see it did get a little muddled in the editing process. Some of the chronological details ended up on the cutting room floor with the rest of my darlings when I trimmed 5000 words down to 1250. 🙂
5000 down to 1250—that is some very impressive editing! I thought I did well to cut mine down from 2000 to 1200.
You write beautifully, Missaralee. I also had to read it twice to catch on, but I loved the redemption at the end.
THE PENANCE OF ROD SIMPSON
by Jason Hague
It had been five years since Rod Simpson killed Anders Grimm with a bad pitch. Nobody else knew that except for the girl in black sunglasses who now sat behind home plate. Leah would have married Anders and everyone knew it. The town’s favorite son and the judge’s untouchable daughter. Bridges would have been named after their children. The fact that she still wore black only added to both of their legends. The town still hovered over her like a giant den of mother bears. They provided her with meals and scholarships and finally this: a baseball game in the middle of the county fair to remember her Anders.
Simpson could feel Leah’s eyes burn through him as he stood on the mound and hammered the ball into his glove. The breeze sounded like squealing teenagers and smelled like burnt popcorn. Fans were yelling “Go number four!”—the number worn by every player on both teams in honor of Anders Grimm—and then laughing at their own wit. But even with these distractions, Simpson could not shake his awareness of her.
“Two men on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and our mail man Pitcher Rod Simpson is taking his own sweet time to throw the ball,” the PA announcer reported. It was the mayor. “And speaking of sweet, remember the annual monster cookie contest is coming up directly after the game.”
Simpson pulled hard on the back of his dusty mullet and nodded to his catcher. Corey James was at the plate one last time. Corey James, the only semi-pro player the town had produced in decades. Corey James, the former star of the crosstown rivals, the Westside Hornets. Corey James, the one who had hit the pitch that killed Anders Grimm.
There were two college kids on second and third. A base hit would probably bring them home, and the game would be over.
“Don’t pitch to ‘im, mail man!” a fan yelled. “He’s got four hits tonight already.” Leah Dyson did not move. Simpson’s stomach formed a fist inside him. He would get the out.
Simpson wound up and threw his fastball. James was ready. He swung, knocking the ball high and far. It drifted just outside the third base line.
Strike one.
Simpson felt urgent. He threw again, but his pitch fell short.
Ball one.
When the ball came back to him, Simpson wasted no time. He hurled a third pitch, then a fourth, then a fifth. Two of them were high. The third was another foul.
The crowd came alive.
“Three balls and two strikes!” The mayor thundered. “Remember Macon, these two faced off at the end of the divisional championship five years ago. We all know remember who won that one, don’t we?”
Simpson felt heat rising to his neck. Nobody won that night. When the town lost Anders Grimm, everybody lost. Because of him.
“Tahm! I call tahm!” The unexpected voice shook Simpson out of his rhythm. He recognized it immediately.
“You can’t call time, you’re a fan,” the runner on third called to Leah Dyson, who was tiptoeing down the bleachers. There was an audible gasp that followed his words.
“Shut up, you little college prick!” the catcher screamed, half-marching, half-running to third with his mask upturned. “That’s Leah Dyson. She can do whatever she wants!”
Simpson looked down scraped the dirt off his cleats. He could feel her approaching; his heart always beat differently when she was around. He shut his eyes waited for the scent of her perfume.
“Rod, what are you tryin’ to do?” she asked before she even reached the mound.
The smell of wildflowers broke open a damn of memories. Memories of youth and laughter; of the softness of her skin; of Anders’ innocent, clueless smile; of a guilt which begged to be revealed and relieved.
“Well,” she demanded. He looked up at her small, magnificent figure, wrapped in a black sleeveless blouse and jean skirt. She had not changed. Only her hair was different. She used to be blond. Now, there were dark brown strands falling to both sides of her jaw.
“L-Leah,” he stammered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She dismissed his comment. “You’re bein’ stoopid, triyn’ to strahk him out!”
He grinned. “I got two strikes on him already.”
“He almost homered both times,” she said. You can’t beet ‘im. ”
A cloud of smoke lumbered through the infield, carrying subliminal messages of turkey legs and sausage. Simpson waved it out of his eyes. Leah coughed.
“Why didn’t you ever answer my emails?” she whispered.
Simpson shrugged. “I was busy over in Lawson. College and all that.”
“You been back for eight months with that mail job.”
“Come on, let’s finish this game!” the third baseman shouted.
Leah whipped off her sunglasses and screamed “You want me to come over there and make you shut up?”
The crowd started to applaud.
“Take that, stupid number four!” a kid shouted. Laughter erupted around him.
Simpson smiled, finally meeting her impossible brown eyes. “Look, I wanna talk, I do. But I just gotta do this first.” He motioned to Corey James.
She leaned in and stuck her finger into his chest. “No. You. Don’t.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Leah.”
“Oh why wouldn’t I? Cause I’m a girl? Is that it? This some kahna manly… warrior… pirate kahna thing?”
He resisted the urge to smile at “pirate,” and met her gaze. “I failed him last time. In so many ways.”
Leah swallowed and looked at her feet.
He continued. “Anders crashed after the game because he’d been drinkin’. You and me both know his dad covered it up. And he was drinkin’ because I lost the game for us.”
“Ah know all that, Simpson.”
“Then you understand why I have to strike James out this time!”
An organ started playing through the PA system. Somebody must have figured out how to plug in the CD player. The guys on the outfield were competing to see who could kick a beach ball the farthest. A clown was running out to them carrying a tape measure.
When Leah raised her eyes again, they were red. “You threw a bad pitch, Rod Simpson. But Anders loved you lahk a brother.”
He sighed bitterly. “Some brother I was.”
“Listen,” she said. “You made a mistake. But I was almost his wife. And I do not hold this against you.”
Rod looked out at Corey James, who was leaning on his bat, and texting somebody on his phone.
“Look at me, you big oaf,” she said, taking his chin in her soft fingers. Her eyes overpowered him. “Do yo understand what I’m tellin’ you? He never had the chance to say this, but I do. Rod Simpson, I forgive you.”
She lingered for a moment, then turned away and marched to the bleachers. He watched her for a moment, then looked up to the clouds and breathed. It was his deepest breath in five years.
The PA announcer returned:
“So here we go. Time out ended, and here’s Rod Simpson on the mound with three balls and two strikes. Here comes the pitch…. Oh, it’s high and way, way outside. An intentional walk.”
At that, Leah Dyson rose to her feet and cheered.
I really enjoyed this. Strong writing that carries the suspense to the end. I especially love the first paragraph – what a hook! My only observation is I think the dialect distracts from the story – although I just love the Southern drawl! You make me hanker for Georgia!!!
Thanks, Zoe. I just realized that Leah was the only one in the story with an accent. That is a sloppy oversite on my part. I grew up in Texas. Everybody drawls…
I love this, Jason. Although, I’m not sure why someone from Wisconsin has a Southern accent (that’s how I kept reading Leah).
Katie, Leah DID have a southern accent. This is funny, but I had no idea there was such a place as Macon, Wisconsin, or a college there called “Lawson.” Those were just placeholder names that I didn’t have time to go back and change. I was writing really fast, just trying to finish before the deadline (made it by 2 minutes), but in my mind, this was a town in rural Texas or maybe southern Georgia. That’s really funny…
Ok, I just realized what I did… I must have read your story right after reading Brian’s which is set in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which is a real place but isn’t at all what you’ve described. I definitely read yours as being set in rural Texas or Southern Georgia more than central Wisconsin. Sorry for the confusion. Great story! It makes more sense now.
Well, apparently, there is a Macon, WI and a Lawson College, too. I googled it after your last comment. 🙂
Track of Fire
I remember the cool summer night we were sitting by the fire
pit outdoors, the stars above twinkling shyly, hiding and peeking behind the
curtain of night. We wondered aloud which past souls were spying on us.
Sparks and ashes flew; we stoked the fire with a large stick
keep it burning as we talked late into the night. That was the night his heart
split open, like the logs. I caught his words in my hands and held them, and as
the night grew darker, his soul grew brighter.
Him, baring your soul, was as beautiful as the blazing fire.
My soul warmed up to his, and I felt safe. Him, sharing yourself with me, things
no one else knew. It was when he told me everything, his life story, and his dream,
that I wanted to cry– cry real tears, the kind of tears that make me feel as
if all is right with the world.
We both cried that day.
We could hear the blast of
fireworks in the distance, the sound of applause and delight filling the air.Real words, full of our real
lives, is what we kept tossing into the fire that night, and we watched the
blaze get higher, extend toward the sky, above our heads. It was the fuel of
our selves– our breath holding magic air. We spoke words of fire, and our
souls lit.
In the daylight, the firelight was
dim, but our eyes were not. We walked through the flames of our words and
lived.
And then the next day, he left.
***
I heard about him on the news, after that. How he won this
trial, or that one. “Olympic hopeful,” they said. When they mentioned his name,
I heard the fire hissing and saw ashes flying and my stomach hurt, sometimes
doubling over. Desire knows no boundaries.
It happened, we all know. He made it, winning medal, after
medal, after medal– blood, sweat, and tears, transformed into circles of gold
in his hands. He smiled, winked, charmed, and looked happy. I reached out to
the screen to touch his hand when you waved. The newest super-athlete. A hero.
A household name. Him.
When he came home, and we talked, I could see the glint in
his eyes; how his eyes had turned colors— and I had to look away to avoid the
burn.
***
He is sitting there, at the end of the walk at the crest of
the hill, in his usual spot, staring into the open sky in front of him. The
lawn is sweet green, soft and cut low. Yellow and pink flowers bloom in
mulch-filled beds. The trees offer patches of shade. Below the hill is a small neighborhood park
where children gather each night in the summer, swinging, sliding and singing.
He watches, silently.
I watch him, when he doesn’t know I’m looking. I watch the single
flume of gray smoke.
It was soon after he came home for good, that he gave me the
key. Until then, he had kept the key on a chain around his neck, hidden under
his shirt. He still trusted me with his secrets. He told me not to open the box
until… well, he said he’d tell me when it was time.
Today was the day. I took the key and turned he lock to the
small box, then lifted the lid.
And there they were— all of them, in all medal colors: gold,
silver, bronze. Catching a bit of the sun, the glow hurt my eyes.
After the accident he hadn’t spoken much. About anything.
But this? What did it mean? Why did he want them, now?
He asks for the medals and places them in a small pouch. He
asks me to take him down to the park; it is such an odd request from him, a
person so resigned, quiet, within himself, to ask for anything unless
absolutely necessary.
Yet, he did, so I acquiesce.
I push his chair down the hill to the playground and we stop
to watch the children play. The faintest smile brushes his face.
He opens a small pouch he has with him. He removes one of
the medals from the bag anbd places it around his neck. Then, he takes another and places it around
his neck also. Then, another, and another, until he has five gold medals around
his neck.
Curious children begin to notice, glance his direction, whisper
to one another, smile and peek. Finally a brave young girl walks up to him and
asks him why he is wearing medals around his neck.
And he tells her. He tells her that before he needed wheels
to walk, he ran as if he were flying on air. He tells her that he used to be
the fastest mover on planet earth. And would she like to challenge him to find
out? He winks, and laughs. A tear spills down my cheek.
The girl’s eyes get big and I am stunned and wonder if he
has lost something more than the use of his lower limbs.
“But, you’re not that old. How old are you?” she asks.
“No… ” his voice trailed off.
In his eyes I could see his mind reviewing his life, how the
dream began, and how the Olympic torch became a scorching symbol of loss, and
how seeing an oval track made him feel like hell would be running in the same circles
forever and never being able to stop and feeling his feet burn.
“Here,” he says, handing the girl one of the medals. “It’s
yours.”
The girl’s eyes get even larger and her mouth pops open. She
quickly breaks into a smile and squeal of joy, taking the medal before the man
could change his mind.
She didn’t question or return the gift. She simply accepted
it, and ran off with her new prize.
He laughs and looks at me.
I smile back. The sun is large and low in the sky, as if to
mock the gold circles around his neck by saying, “Some gold circles will always
be bigger.”
But this time, I’m not so sure Sun is winning the round. Sun
may fall from the sky one day, but that girl will never forget.
He removes the medals from his neck and places them back in
his pouch.
“Here,” he says. “They’re yours. They always were.”
And his eyes reflect the sepia brown of the trees around us,
the brown eyes I used to know.
Sorry, I posted twice… I thought the first one didn’t go through! (The first is listed under my blog name, path of treasure). This is my first time to post a story, so please have mercy on a newbie. 🙂 Thank you!
Beautiful story and writing, Anna.
Thank you, Steph! I see some typos… and I meant to say “him baring HIS soul” not YOUR soul, LOL… and I see it happens again a bit later, I’m in 2nd person when I didn’t intend to be. (My late night editing, ha ha). 🙂
I didn’t even notice, Anna. And at least you edit — I always just end up typing mine up as quickly as I can and hitting submit at the last minute! I figure Joe can do that editing stuff if it ever gets to that 🙂 .
I agree with Steph – this is beautiful. This is so poetic and full of atmosphere – especially the beginning with the fire. Well done!
Thank you, Zoe.
I understand if I disqualified I’m on the West Coast … and it’s only 9:32 pm – I just wanted to get this story up here anyway.
Wally’s Fieldhouse …
“Ollie, throw me the rake.”
“Hee ya ahhh, Mr. Dougherty?”
“Thanks Ollie, and please call me Rod, which is short for
Roderick, kind of like Ollie is short for Oliver.”
“It ain’t, Mr. Dougherty, I’m a gal, dare’s no Oliver in maa
name sir.”
She’s a spunky one, I thought, and Wally – short for Walter
– would have liked her.
“It won’t bring him back Roderick.” Janie said, later that night. I knew she was right, nothing would
bring him back and time wasn’t helping either, it’s been a year.
“I know Janie, I just don’t know what to do with
myself. Do you remember when I
went to see Father Muldoon?” I asked her.
“Yes, and you haven’t talked
about it. I wanted to ask you but
I know you’re angry.”
“This is what the good father
told me, Janie.”
“Just keep praying and
in time you’ll no longer cry, be sad, feel guilty, be angry or feel the way you
are feeling right now; It will all go away, and you’ll be fine.”
“I couldn’t believe it, I ran
out of his office, sped home and cried into my pillow like a little boy. I
don’t want it to go away, Janie. I
want to believe that I will miss Walter just the same as the very first moment
I knew he was ‘gone’. If not, then
how will I keep his beautiful spirit alive? How will I stay alive?” I was screaming now and I was sorry that I did that to
Janie.
Janie rolled over and went back
to her reading.
…
Our southern town hadn’t seen baseball for years, ever since
the car factory shut down. The
field where the boys, including Walter, played little league was bought up by
the developer of the tract homes and never rebuilt; even though they promised a
new modern field, bigger and better than the one they tore down. The only resemblance of a field in our
town is the one the factory workers once used for their weekend softball games,
located in between the empty factory buildings and the empty tract homes.
I was determined to re-introduce little league baseball to
our community and do it by myself if I had to, and now I had Ollie. She was
here every day waiting for me when I arrived. She was a good little helper. But mostly she talked so much it kept my mind off of the
real reason I was out here every afternoon and every weekend.
“Mr. Dougherty, my mama toll me yo a crazy sum B cuz Wally
died and now you out hea waysin ya tam doin dis dum ole ting.”
And yet I would continue, it was the only reason I had to
get up in the morning. Looking
forward to the afternoons and the weekends was all I had. I spent my days at the new
doorknob factory going through the motions driving a forklift bringing parts to
the assembly line.
“Well young lady, your mama ain’t lying, she’s a smart one
all right. But, what do you think I should do Ollie?”
“I thinks ya otta keep on goin and I will hep ya.”
“Well then, take this rake young lady and smooth out this
path of dirt all the way to that fence.”
“Yes suh.”
“Where’s your daddy, Ollie? – and how does he feel about you
being down here helping me?”
“He’s a no-good
rascal, Mr. Dougherty. He dun took
up an leff me and my mama to fen fur ahhselvz. Da ony gud ting he dade, my mama tole me, is dat he dint
gave her any mo’ babies, ony me.”
Ollie and I spent our days raking and leveling, and clearing
the weeds out of the infield. The
water had been long shut off, and I didn’t think we could grow grass on the
sand without water. The only
living things out here were nasty red ants and poor Ollie would yelp up a storm
at least twice a day. Despite the
harsh conditions we trudged on oblivious to the obvious insanity. The work was so taxing that my mind
often slipped back to my own childhood and the memories of what fun I had as a
boy playing little league baseball.
We had many onlookers come by to gawk. We must have been a sight to see, a
broken down man and a young girl that nobody had the time or decency to get to
know. A couple of times Ollie
would yell at the kids that rode by on their scooters and broken down
bicycles.
“Ollie, don’t yell too loud, those are going be some of our
players.”
A few days later the owner of the land came by, and it just
so happened he was also the owner of the new doorknob factory where I worked.
“Mr. Dougherty, what’s all this going on out here?”
Ollie and I were on pins and needles hoping he wouldn’t
throw us out and then Ollie began to cry.
“What’s the matter little lady?”
“I’m jus afreared suh, dat yoos gonna kick us off, an we’ll
never git dis hea feeld dun for Wally?”
“Wally? – who’s Wally, young lady?”
“Well suh, dats Misser Dougherty’s son who dun died from da
kansuh lass summa.”
I told Mr. Sawyer that Ollie spoke the truth and that I
thought it would be a good idea to rebuild this field since the town was
showing new signs of life. I told
him how his factory was helping the economy in our town, and the kids would need
a sport like little league baseball to help unite the town.
“Slow down Mr. Dougherty. I completely agree; I’ve got two boys myself. I’m sorry to hear about your boy Wally,
we lost our first born baby girl and I know how tough it is.”
He told me he thought it was an excellent idea and that he
was out here searching for a larger building to expand his operations and glad
that he came upon out little undertaking and he would send help post
haste.
The next few months were exciting and fast paced. I couldn’t believe how much help Mr.
Sawyer sent. He not only sent a
professional crew to completely renovate the field he appointed me field
supervisor and I was able to get off that forklift for a few months each year
and take care of my labor of love.
The year was 1974 and it was the first year of girls being allowed to
play little league with the boys and good thing because no one could have kept
Ollie from playing that year.
I still missed Walter every day and the new field was named
in his honor … ‘Wally’s Fieldhouse’ prominently emblazoned in big letters
directly above home plate on both sides of the fence. Janie and I couldn’t have been more proud.
Hi Robert!
We’ll accept it this time. Try to get it in before 12 est next time, okay? Excited to read this, Robert 🙂
Thanks Joe!
Nice job Robert! I like how your pieces have an all American throw back feel. Ollie’s accent added an interest to the piece. I couldn’t decide if she was a poor southern girl or had a disability but it didn’t really matter, her character added a nice warm, human touch.
Thanks Beck … I find myself writing in the same venacular all the time — I don’t know if it means I’m finding ‘my style’ or if it’s the only thing I can do? … thank you for taking the time to comment.
I’ve asked myself the same question! I think it’s good to stretch our writing muscles and practice outside of our comfort zone at times but when it comes to writing what we know and love I really don’t think it can be beat. Of course that’s just my opinion!
I love this! It reminds me a bit of Alice Walker, one of my all-time favourites. Full of passion and punchy lines.
Wow, what a compliment! Thank you!