"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche
A hollow feeling accompanied me retrospectively that afternoon/early evening. By nightfall the ghostly spectres of flailing keepers and looming uprights had been vanquished. Why had the ball been allowed to bounce anyway? Had we picked the right pitch? Why didn't I pass it? Why did Allcott own that hat? To sleep, perchance to dream...
We looked so comfortable in those first few minutes, connecting, working, learning. Daisy and Allcott, an oar each below decks, ploughing the great seas of uncertainty with assured strokes. The war torn helmsman steering us towards calmer waters. And ho! what exotic booty had been promised and received! And ho! how the blue skies seemed to swell and ache in our presence! A shot from Safa came close.
We ploughed on, through the mud, unquestioning. Our minds and hearts had set a course for the stars, and it was from heaven that the sign was to come. Perhaps the night before Gandhi had flown too close to the Sun? I am not one to question the motivations of the pure. Like a falling star, sent by Zeus himself, a drop kick from the opposition keeper descended, meteor-like, into our eighteen. The deck splintered, moaned, and breached. 1-0 Sandmere.
"All hands on deck". I could feel my heart pound in the confusion. Ropes fastened. Sails bulged. And what's this? The referee a deceiver? Daisy asked him to put a bib on.
And then further confusion. The rules of the game had changed and all was not as it seemed. In some cruel twist of fate we came to realise that for countless months we had been adrift. We had been playing without linesmen. Their apathetic wanderings, like the lost souls of Hades, chilled me to my very soul. We ignored them.
But our mettle had been forged ready tempered. Like Greeks against the walls of Troy, Sandmere could find peace only in death.
The death of their passing game. They squabbled amongst themselves like animals. Warped monsters of men, they were a horror to behold. And then a flash, nay, a whisper of a dream. Such beauty as is a strain to behold, as Woody danced, fawn-like, across the Herculean keeper. Judgement and Justice became one in an instant, as a lone tear ran down the referee's cheek. On the brink of weeping at the destruction of such grace, he gave a penno.
To sleep, perchance to dream...
There could be only one man to shoulder such a burden. The lusty picture of youth and beauty. Allcott.
Some say he resides now, in eternity, forever talking penalties at a goal with no crossbar. Others claim he can be seen in the stars between the constellation of Orion and the ball he hit, soaring forever into the abyss.
Battle scarred and weary, we continued to dream. Our bodies glistened with sweat borne from ploughing a field yet to yield fruit. But the Sun had not yet set. A cry went up. Could it be? Off the Starboard bow? Almost impossible to make out. Daisy. His tireless work a tribute to his family. And then a sphere, indescribable, shot from a bow strung with gold, flew towards the box like the echo of creation. Love, hate, anger, virtue, it was all things. And in it, for an isntant, I saw everything. My breast heaved with desire.
Meanwhile, grazing the pastures to the west, something in Matthew Wood stirred. The snap of a twig, a sixth sense. His ears pricked. Like Pan himself he danced toward the call, through the sleeping Sandmere defence. Perhaps the work of Orpheus? It is not our fate to know. And then, suddenly, he lifted. Morphing in the air to meet our burning sphere of hope.
And then nothing. What happened that day with be the mother of many tales, borne of the dreams of men. Borne of hope, borne of desire. Epic, tragedy... comedy? The Gods will decide.
