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Catch of Fate
I feel tension flowing through my veins like a sleek fish cutting through water. Even the great game I am playing can’t subdue its churning fins. Nothing can. Nothing but the buzzer signaling the end of this battle. But that will have to wait. Now is now. I am ready to play, ready to demolish.
Where is it? Got to find it. There is the brown object that in a few short seconds all attention would be on…
“DOWN!” That’s the captain, the general of the opponent, ready to get everything rolling. I hear his shout, feel the mud on my legs; I see the sun on the helmets of the people in front of me. Enemy and ally alike arranged in complex patterns around me, getting revved for the events ahead.
“SET!” The captain again. One step closer to getting the play started. The birds over head, the cars on the street, the fans in the stands, all as if suspended in time, to come rushing back in at the next word.
“GO!” There it is the lever is thrown and the ball is rolling. Everything is a blur of color. Red, yellow, blue, green, they are all here, but now there is another. A brown blur, high in the sky spiraling towards its target in the end zone of the enemy. I have to beat it there, and I do.
Right at the time the blur would have entered the arms of the opponent it enters mine. The blur is now my ally. What now? I think. The cry of a teammate spurs me into action like a horse whacked with a whip and I run like never before!
Every thing is a scramble of color, but as I run it all gets clearer, this lane to run through, that hole to jump over. Now it is totally clear. I turn on the speed; there is the finish line, two more steps! …
There is a crushing blow from behind, I fall to the ground, and I feel its hardness underneath me. I taste the sour taste of defeat in my dry mouth. I am screaming at my self in my head I’ve failed, so close but so far.
Sitting up I
hear the buzzer, I look at the scoreboard and… I had been tackled into the end
zone. My last ditch effort had counted!! My teammates flood over me like water
over the beach at high tide, ripping at the sand to make every thin smooth
again. That is my world; smooth,
even, not a bump anywhere.
As I sit in the mud and see the other team sulking, the meaning of what I
had done sinks in and I celebrate with the rest of my friends.
I have never been so happy. People everywhere congratulating me, strangers and close friends. They were all here to celebrate our win.
Leaving the field I almost feel like bragging and flaunting the win but I
then remember something I learned a long time back. It is not if you win or lose
but it is how you play the game. So instead I smile and walk off with my
teammates.