Finals confrontation

Time is running out. There’s only one more obstacle between Seb and victory, one more foe. Unfortunately, this enemy has a familiar face.

This was it. My breath steamed in the remnants of the early morning chill, mixing with the dew that was rapidly burning off what grass remained on the field. Metal and boots had churned the damp grass to a muddy slurry; everyone looked the same from the knees down. But on our torsos, the colours were still visible. And they mattered.

Time had slowed to a crawl for me. Reuben - my best friend no longer, cruel fate placing us on opposing teams - stood before me. The final guardian, between me and the Cup, the holy grail we’d worked so hard to get.

His shoulders hunched, his stance widened as he waited for me to make my move.

There was only the two of us in the rapidly rising sunlight, nobody else mattered. I’d left the main scrum behind me, jinked between my foes as they tried to halt my advance and emerged back onto the clear. The muddy flat stretched before me, clear save for Reuben. And I had run.

I was still running. My side ached, my legs burned, but I kept going. Time was short, and I needed to make it count.

Reuban grew larger as I approached, until he filled the entire world from mud to sky, stretched like taffy to block the horizon. He was everywhere and everything.

Could I do it?

Behind me, I could hear the shouts and the sounds of heavy feet squelching towards me at speed. They were close and closing fast, but I needed to trust my allies to waylay them and give me the time I needed. They would do it. I would do it.

Legs pumping, I cast an eye over Reuben, searching for weakness, a chink in his defences. He stood like a wall, insurmountable and indomitable. Age had fleshed him out, broadened his shoulders, thickened his legs - it was as though he was a great tree, an ancient redwood or oak standing rooted in the muddy loam. A natural phenomenon and, if I couldn’t get past him, a natural disaster for my team.

Reuben shifted his weight, almost imperceptibly. It might have been all in my mind, wishful thinking playing tricks on my reality, but I remembered. One summer, by the creek, by the tree with the rope swing.
Splashing, laughing, water flying like tiny crystals sparkling in the summer sunlight. Gravity and its rules suspended for a moment. Ignored.

It didn’t ignore us.

Summer wasn’t made to be spent in hospital with plaster up to the thigh, but now it might be my only chance. This faint memory might be my key to victory, not just today but for the season.

My eyes flicked momentarily to the right. I twisted as if taking a shot and - in the moment Reuban began to throw himself sideways, to counter my movements with his body - I swung my leg around. My weight shifted, the swing pulling me around as I sent the ball soaring with blistering speed towards the goal.

Reuban was quick, sending mud flying as he readjusted and then as his fingers brushed the ball his face creased with pain. His knee, never quite the same since that hazy summer two years ago, buckled slightly beneath his weight and he pitched sideways. Just enough.

His grasping greedy fingers sent the ball arcing on a new path but - critically - the curve continued past his head and in a moment that seemed to last forever it hit the back of the net.

The scoreboard ticked over - 2 to 1. We’d won.