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sebmojo posted:let us meditate for a moment on how very wrong this is Fast meditation good meditation
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Nov 10, 2015 01:17
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 02:35 |
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U Mad Bro? the brawl The Laws of the Game 1363 words I'm chased off the pitch by the booing of fifty thousand people, so thick and so deep my eardrums hum. It's when I watch the replay that I make up my mind. They're right: it's another terrible call. The defender gets the ball, not the man, but I don't see that. I whistle for the penalty and the crowd snarls. I cut the video and dial the number. The phone rings. And rings. And rings. It echoes in my dank dressing room. There's a banging on my door. Even before I open it, I know it's the home manager. Flemoth Town are in the relegation zone now. “Open up!” I close the phone and go to the door. Shields is red in the face, like he'd played the ninety minutes himself. “I'm lodging a formal complaint,” he says. “In all my years, I've never seen a worse decision.” “You said that last time, sir.” “Don't loving remind me. My job's on the line because of you.” He slams the door. He won't get it overturned. Not how football works. But it's another black mark on him. And on me. At least he has the Cup Final to look forward to. The kids would say that 'haters gonna hate', but I'm not young any more. I'm old. Too old. I dial the number, and this time it connects. # First there was goal-line technology. Was that ball across the line or not? Whole seasons, entire businesses, turning on the dimes of single decisions. Turned out the question of whether or not a ball was in one place or another place was, well, not hard. But still I called wrong. It wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough. I make it home unrecognised and shed the tracksuit. I don't bother changing out of my black referee's kit: I just step on the treadmill and start running. I don't go jogging any more. Wherever I run in London, someone knows my face and remembers my failures. The phone rings. I don't stop running, but I answer. It's my doctor. “Mark, what is this surgery you've booked? I told you your ligaments needed rest.” “It's elective,” I say, pounding rubber. My right leg twinges. “And it's not about that.” “I can see that much. Mark, this is serious. You really shouldn't-” I hang up on him and turn up the speed. I tear forwards in place, the fastest man on the pitch. I push myself, until my leg gives out from under me and I tumble to the floor of my flat. I sit there for a minute, cursing. Can't do anything right. # When I was a lad, and balls were kicked around in streets and in parks and in back gardens, I was never much of a player. It was too physical, too messy. Shoves, trips and mud were the order of those days. But I knew The Laws of the Game. I'd read them, each and every edition. The referee's Bible, the holy writ of sportsmanship. I don't know why they let me, but I did it. I stopped play, called the fouls and broke up the fights. They were halcyon days, running under rainfall, where I set things right. The game was beautiful. There were rules. Now, under floodlights, I apply The Laws and the crowd sings the old classic 'Cheerio'. If you don't know it, it goes like this: Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio Cheerio, cheerio, cheerioo-o The defender's not having it. “loving nothing in it,” he shouts. “Didn't touch him.” My new eyes feed me the replay again, and I patch into the TV cameras for good measure. He bloody well did touch him. It's a cruncher of a tackle, taking the boy's legs away. I hold the red card higher, body straight like a ruler, the defender's dismissal beyond debate. “Bollocks!” The defender bullrushes me. Time slows, vectors layer on my vision, and I twist aside. Pain flares up my leg: he falls face first onto the grass and the crowd starts to laugh. I make a big show of writing this down, gritting back the pain. Two match ban, probably. I don't need my little referee's book any more: all the fouls, misdemeanors, incidents, go into the little black book in my head, filed by match and time, ready for upload. He rises, glaring. I turn my back on him, blow the whistle and set up the free kick. He skulks off behind me to jeers. This time, when it's all over, I jog off the pitch unnoticed. My dressing room is quiet, ordered. There's a knock on the door. It's Shields again. “Look, sorry about my lad out there. Wasn't acceptable – I'll be letting him know.” “Thank you,” I say. “There'll be a ban though.” “Quite right too,” he says. “It was a disgraceful tackle.” I close the door and limp over to my bag. I pull out the phone and make another call. The wetware works perfectly, but it's not enough. # My phone rings when I get home. My performance has been noticed. I've jumped up the league table. I'll be handling the Cup Final. It's the biggest match I've ever had. I run myself a bath and relax, letting my leg soften up for the surgery. The phone rings again. My doctor again. “I can't recommend this sort of invasive surgery, Mark. You're pushing yourself too hard. Have you considered rejection?” “I'm not rejecting it.” “I mean your body, Mark! These things are never simple. As your doctor, I can honestly say I have no idea what will happen.” “It's okay,” I say. “They're going to power up the wetware stuff too. Make sure I'm at my best.” “Isn't it working? You should take it out.” “It's not good enough.” I hang up and soak in the warm water. Haters gonna hate, I'm told. # Wembley Stadium holds ninety thousand people. Each and every one of them waits for me to act. I breathe in slowly, savouring the moment. Then I blow the whistle and it kicks off. I engage the wetware and the world crawls. Waves roll across the grass as the breeze passes. The crowd rocks from side to side. The leg is almost too good. I force myself to slow down, to stay alongside the play. But I can anticipate: I see every possible pass, the lines of every run, the trajectory of the goal coming in thirty-seven seconds - no - the striker is half a centimetre offside. I stop play. I can see everything. My peripheral vision is perfect. Every call is bang on. My grip is iron. The Laws are sovereign. I blow the whistle again. And again. And again. It starts to rain during half time. The game kicks back off, muddier now, the ball skidding on wet grass. Five minutes to go, and no goals. Everything to play for. Flemoth Town lift the ball forward. Their opponents fall back, trying to form a line, but it's not good enough. Play surges on through the gaps, advancing on the penalty area, and I accelerate to keep up. Too much speed. I slip on the slick muck and I fall. Face down, I hear the crowd roar as one. “Penalty!” The cry goes up, loud and fierce. I stand back up and ninety thousand eyes look to me. The Laws are clear in this situation. I cannot give a penalty. I didn't see the incident. If I didn't see it, it didn't happen. Play on. And yet, I don't need to see it. I bring up the TV cameras. There's no good angle. There's a tackle, but is it clean? I don't know. Players on both sides are piling up around me. They shout, they roar. The crowd grows restless. The moment stretches. I mute them and I run back time. If the ball is here, therefore it was there, and there, and on and on and on: it's nothing but trajectories and vectors, with a dash of tactical nous. I am beyond The Laws. I set things right. I signal the penalty, and Wembley erupts. I point to the spot. Haters gonna hate.
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Nov 11, 2015 05:39
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Ironic Twist posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4nSZ79fXO8 goes to Obliterati. 
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Nov 12, 2015 05:32
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Broenheim posted:In the Unknown what the gently caress you're not leaving me out of this, I loving fought for you, man 
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Nov 17, 2015 07:58
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Regolith 799 words When the Drillbit broke Amelia was piloting, because of course she was. I was in the engine room, because of course I was. So I drop everything and make for the nose. My feet thud in silence. For a second, I reach out and touch the metal walls. In the stillness they feel like the rock outside: cold, dead and infinite. I move on. Not one of them has thought to put the fire out. The controls - her controls - are going up in flames. They watch in grim silence. We were so close. She had got us so close. But the last of the pilots is dead. She used to tell me about the surface. The scriptures say we come from there, but she had other ideas. “What if,” she asked me once, running a finger along my backbone, “this is where we belong? What if we were never cast out? What if this is it?” We lay there in my bunk, and I showed her my grandfather’s old pickaxe. When we began, all we had were tools, but we dug. We drilled. And the time came to launch the Drillbit. “But what if I fail?” I laughed it off. I told her she was going to redeem us. That one day soon, the Drillbit would bring us back. That she was the heir to generations of pilots, each and every one of them crawling us forward, inching through the stone, back to the green grass of home. But then, I was an engine stoker. What did I know? I reach down to her with a coal-stained hand, and as I run my fingers through hers, I cannot tell who is burned and who is blackened. I turn to the captain. “What now?” He shrugs. All he’s ever done is shrug. “It’s over, Caliban.” “But we’re so close.” “Close, but no cigar.” “What the hell does that mean?” “I don’t know,” he says. “But do you see any cigars down here?” —- The tunnel rises ahead of me. There are no lights below the Earth. I navigate by sound. The water drips like a metronome, spattering me as I walk. As I approach the front, I switch on the torch. The Drillbit is broken. Her massive corkscrew lies shattered. The rock above sits pristine, taunting me, taunting her. We were so close. I climb. I heft the pickaxe. It is strangely light in my man’s hands. Once, as a child, my father let me try and lift it. I remember his laughter, and I remember thinking about my grandfather, hammering his way home with a heavy stick, and I remember being glad for the Drillbit. But the Drillbit is broken. I swing the pick. It glances off the slick stone, and I reposition. —- We move to emergency power. We are out of raw materials, out of energy. The gardens have one more harvest, but nobody harvests. There is just the routine. Rise early. Stand around the engine room, going through the motions. Then, in the absence of purpose, take up the pickaxe. Stone has shapes, has lines within it. The Drillbit tore through everything, but I am a man with a stick. I have to pay attention. Strike it just right and whole formations cleave off, crumbling. I am almost done. In the old books, our ancestors buried their dead. They committed them to the earth, to rest there. The chamber I carve grows each day. Metal chips on stone. As I dig, I sing. Grandfather was a singer, I was told. So I try, but my voice cracks from dryness. I skim the water off of the stone to slake my thirst, but it is never enough. On the surface, they say, the water lies on the ground in sheets, in deep fixed layers. But I will never know, so I dig. It feels like the right tribute. She brought us all this way. As my little tunnel grows, it grows unstable. The Drillbit left its problems behind - it dug fast and deep. But I am a man with a heavy stick, and I need to build supports. The remains of the Drillbit do the job: I prop up my endeavour with fragments of the nose. I think I’ll cut out a little place for myself. I suppose I am a miner now. As I work with the stone in silence, I learn to listen to it. It guides me through. Each strike yields new echoes, a new interpretation, of what lies ahead. As I listen, the echoes grow richer, lighter. There is a new hollowness in it, and I cannot give that up. I swing again, and the rock crumbles. Water crashes into me and I reel from the spray. I take a breath, and look up.
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Dec 1, 2015 07:45
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 02:35 |
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my next post in this thread will be those goddamn crits I owe
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Dec 1, 2015 07:46
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