Fallen Star

What a year it was for him,
watching his favorite star fall out the sky.
It tumbled silently at first,
and seemed so graceful
that he rejoiced,
because something was happening,
something exciting, before his eyes,
a spectacle.
But he knew it wasn’t that simple,
from the times he had fallen.
And this star was so much higher up
than he had been.
He imagined
the life of the star.
How it was raised,
up to that point
where it shone
for billions of years,
and millions of miles.
How it must've toiled to rekindle its own explosions
when the supernovas seemed to burn so much brighter.
How it must've struggled
against the pull of other galaxies
to maintain its orbit,
to stay at that spot
where he had watched it
everyday for years.
What grief it must've felt
to have fallen
when previously,
so many eyes had fallen on it.
But he also knew
the star wouldn't mind
because he hadn't lost sight.
And when he climbed the roof that night
and had to squint maybe a little harder
than he had before,
his eyes twinkled again
when they found his favorite star.

Digging

         Searching in the ground for something buried long ago. Where to begin? How deep do I go? Keep hearing in my head, “The X marks the spot, The X marks the spot.” As if there could be some treasure. So much gravel in the way of sweet soil, it’s hard to get through. I just want to dig… 

         Just want the ground to give. When I dig. When I live. I find solace in the repetition. In the sedimentary depositions. What is my position on the friction of my mission? Well, the gravel sucks and the soil rocks, so much coal for Christmas socks. No crystals here, no emeralds neither. Not even a flash, of an ephemeral pleaser. Alone in my hole, the digger’s den. Far from the worries of women and men. The deeper I go, the closer to China. They should give me a hardhat and call me a miner…

        But I’m not going back up, not in a million years. Not until I’m dead and fossilized. Not until they have to go through a thousand layers just to excavate me. Not until they have to cut through all the gravel I did to get here. Just to find me. And wonder what I once was.

Printing Press

He has gone too far, there is no escape.

As he shoulders his fate,

In between a boulder and a plate,

The rollers flatten him into an awkward shape.

His death is slow, the pain is real,

How did he end up with such a raw deal?

How was he flawed? Where his Achilles heel?

His bones crunch under the weight of the wheel.

His skull now splits open, he relinquishes his claim

To the words inside that are now given to fame,

Distorted and contorted, they are bound to his name,

As his precious thoughts are smashed out of his brain.

Time watches him go, swept away in a blink,

As the meaning of a corpse is lost in its stink,

So is his soul and mind, his work’s only link,

How much he has suffered to be written in ink.

Lone Trumpeter

What sounds does the trumpeter blow from his horn?

when there is no stage, no lights

no audience

When in his band are

a fluorescent bulb buzzing and insects chirping

outside his basement window

When his songs vanish as he plays them,

never to be pressed into a record

or a soul

These silent sounds,

they intoxicate him

so that even he cannot recall how good they felt

From a dream

She doesn’t have to strain herself too much these days. She just is. How is she, you might ask? It’s hard to say, really. On the surface she is pretty, gracious, and considerate. Her first noticeable feature, which will speak to you long before she will, is the simple symmetry of her face. Everything about its design is elegant. Decorated by the fiery and uncharacteristic eyebrows are her softest eyes, like a slumbering dwarf star girded by fiery meteor showers. Her eyelids look like they must be very heavy and inclined towards sleep, and she doesn’t strain herself to keep them open wide. Though, it is as if their purpose is to gaze, to see through the flimsy charades of her counterparts and into their spirit. These eyes are not greedy-- they are neither searching for treasures nor carried away by pleasures. They are a faithful and humble servant to their master, her mind; and they stretch out to her lover when her mind is no longer relevant, joining the two hearts together, miraculously rushing the blood from one to the other. The ample width between her eyes allows a spacious feeling that calms you before her best feature claims you as it draws your eyes gently towards the center. This nose I speak of arches outward into a rounded tip and if you look straight ahead the bridge of it, along with the cartilage of her well-proportioned nostrils, resembles the Hindu temples at Bhubaneswar. You can imagine her breath circulating in concentric circles within these rounded chambers, effortlessly chugging up the oxygen necessary to keep her lamp lit. And how bright it shines, when southward her lips are stretched by the power of an effervescent smile... and another, and another. When her bow is strung by the might of her heart, and her words are let flying like magical arrows, they are known to heal as they strike instead of causing damage. Sometimes her nervousness shows, but what more fertile grounds than the furrows of her forehead to plant seeds of comfort and security. Sometimes she is tired, but what greater bags to fill with the fruits of loving labor than those which form under her eyes when she is exhausted, when even the perfection of this face of hers shows the signs of wear and tears... and tear? If I have been the destroyer, cannot I also be the creator? Can’t my sun evaporate the tears that the clouds of my sky have let loose. I love this face. I adore it. Can’t I have this face forever?

Ragged

look at that one... Ragged.
taken for a stroll. dragged along the road.
is it allowed to hope?
does it have time to despair?
look at that one... ragged.

that one has suffered, yeah...
scolded by an iron rod, chastised with a rough leather strap,
you can tell it felt like smashed porcelain,
from its baggy eyes.
yeah that one has suffered.

does that one hurt? is it numb?
stumbled many a mile on those clanging heels,
oh, that one is well-traveled,
been to places a nightmare would not conjure up.
was it stung? or is it numb?

will it find a bed?
and rest in slumber. one night
without being chased out from its covers?
will it find what it yearns for?
will it find its home?
won’t they take it in, this love?

look at that one... Ragged.
taken for a stroll. dragged along the road.
is it allowed to hope?
does it have time to despair?
look at that one... ragged.

Eggshells

He’s been in there a long time. Sloshing around. Slipping and sliding about along the sides of the curved wall. Sticky and syrupy, movements slowed like three toed sloths. Sapped of his energy, all the while trying to stay afloat. Swimming with eyes closed and numbed soul, he realizes his soupy predicament. The translucence of his confinement bathes him in a heavy amber glow.

He stops and holds his breath, then decides to take a different approach- solidifying ever so slightly. No longer splashing about, he waits it out. He bides his time, sitting soundlessly. All the noise is within. He feels himself stretch and expand and fill in- he can feel the growth. His gelatinous form stiffens, hardening against the thin yet powerfully sculpted walls. He soaks up his surroundings and reaches the point where the air supply is not enough to fill his lungs. Gasps replace the stillness and he rocks back and forth. Suffocation drives him head-first roaring into the barrier and...Crrraaaaackkkk.

He crashes out beautifully, covered in golden yoke, and dances around- a flash in the frying pan.

To Write Her Poem

the mob, the crowds, the rabbles rattle,
gossip swells amongst the prattle,
all the while he’s locked in battle,
to pin this elusive creature,
convey every facet, every feature.
digging into moons with brows damp,
the pen scribbles ‘til his palm cramps,
putting a seal on it, his heart’s stamp,
eschewing using the typewriter,
for this, a method far quieter.
stealing hours the other side of the sun,
words spiraling out like the bullets of a gun,
he commands, "write, ‘til the lexicon come undone!"
his crews assembled in rows unending,
the room emanating, the verses pending,
the man at work, a preposterous task,
to tap the finest wine from a buried cask,
and reveal the beauty beneath a mask,
he peels each layer from its shell,
to put in words beauty’s look, touch, and smell:

Her eyes were fastened on the one she chose
Her skin felt softer than the petals of a rose
Her heart burned bright the way neon glows
This is the one who is marrow to his bone
This is the one he has made his own

Why is the Ocean Blue?

We used to run and build and play
Our joys and plans would fill the day,
We used to whisper and talk and chatter,
Our thoughts were shared on every matter
We used to joke and tease and laugh
Our merriment took unknown paths

But then the hour gets too late
runaway trains with coal in freight,
his fragile mind deteriorates,
the ones at the station can only wait.

The birds disperse, the bats do fly
A light goes dim within his eyes,
standing, waiting, his hands look shy,
he only means to say goodbye.

I used to be able to sit down and read
About the different places in the world.
The seven wonders, the great blue sea.
Filled with great blue whales and great white sharks.
I wondered why the waters were blue
Until someone explained it to me once.
What a sad day that was.

Rubble Telescope

He wakes up in the ruins of a destroyed home. All his memories are still there, intact, but there are no more walls. The windows he used to gaze into the future with are all filled in with rubble. He feels trapped, a cornered tiger. Fuck, more like a cornered gazelle. Always running away from the facts. The first thought that comes to his mind is, “Human sacrifice, anyone?”

He knows, however, that he will be hard pressed to find a place where an Aztec will tear out his heart and other internal organs anymore. The Aztec would be too gentle a punishment for his crimes, anyway. He looks up and sees a beautiful bird hovering around. It used to be his bird, when the structure of the home could contain the two of them.

Now it has been let free from its ugly confines, but still it hovers one more time around its strange companion of old.

Stay Away from the Circus Train

Let me give you some advice, young one.

When the loose cobblestones tremble,

and you can feel the crowds as they come...

Keep singing your tune, don't dissemble.

When their rabble engulfs you, an isle,

and your ears tingle for gluttony,

Know that they traipse silent single file,

Keep your soul free from fragile debris.

When you see them approach, close your eyes.

The most savage animal eats all,

To look will feed them little white lies

Keep your heart steady, for truth stands tall.

And I remember what an old sage once told me when I was young:

Entertain the unnamed untamed lion mane,

Seek no fame, no glory in the game,

Go against the grain, try to stay sane,

Stay away from the circus train.

Insight

I want to go on forward into life- eyes gliding, taking it in;
inner eyes set, staying away from those cabins
like that line from the book I told you I didn't like-
keep the oil on the spoon. No longer howl at the moon-
when it's three years ago October
and my mind broke through, sober.
make me forget those nights, not because they weren't nice:
air evaporating off me like it had to catch supersonic flights.
but bring me back to the matter at hand, down to the atom,
and up past the skies to the interstellar stratum,
Don't wanna fuck it up with my last throws
Do I exist in a place that I'll never know?
want it microscopic and cosmic, This shit is not even comic:
All I want is everything.
And we have plenty of time...

Spirals

He didn’t know where to go, so he followed the road. The road was already there, he was not there yet. So, not knowing when or where he would arrive, he drove. He looked on either side, behind him, and in front– the world’s mysteries lay before him. As he drove on, neatly staying within the little white lines, things came at him fast. Foliage of many kinds, people of even more, surrounded him, getting closer and then farther away as he whizzed by. Concrete, steel, and wood structures grew out of the ground, concealing the people living inside in the same way that each of them hid their souls. There were a few windows, he thought, to let the light in; but these only offered a glimpse. A closed window cannot be penetrated without the shattering of glass.
As he traveled, these abstract thoughts filled his mind. They entered like osmosis and lingered until he forgot where he was. The steering of the car, the shifting of gears, the very actions that were propelling him across the landscape became as involuntary as his heartbeat. The blazing sun snuck silently across the clear sky until it had gone too far and begun to fade. He had started driving at dawn and the open flatlands and the forested areas had changed to rolling hills with mountains visible in the distance. He reflected on where he was and realized that he was not going back home. A week ago, he was going to the family office and making phone calls trying to arrange jute sales. That all seemed long ago and far away though, and the thought was like a relic of an ancient civilization that he had dug up in his mind.

His car hurdled over a bump in the road, jarring his mind away from what he had been thinking and back to what he was doing. Up ahead he could see that the road was going to get more and more windy as it spiraled around the foothills of the mountains. He stopped the car on the side of the road. He had been driving all day, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to drive up into the mountains just yet. He got out and began walking away from the car down a narrow path that looked as if it could have been created by the monotony of a single human life. He put his hand to his crown making a visor and looked out into the setting sun. There were lush tea gardens flourishing not far away that evoked a strangely deep yet momentary peace in him. The tea gardens were deserted at this time, and although they were man-made, he admired how they seemed so devoid of humanity.

Without too much deliberation he drifted along the route, which itself aimlessly looped around areas that could’ve been traversed easily in a straight line. The atmosphere was thick with silence. Like a thousand insects, his head buzzed with it. It didn’t annoy him, though, because the silence was more like the harmless gnats which came out here in the summers than the itchy mosquitos. It swarmed around him till it was dispersed by a faint stirring of his awareness. The culprit was not a rustling in the brush, nor a shimmering bough, but was the far-off scent of his religion. If his faith was less distant, perhaps he would have smelled the burning incense sooner. It was a sweet smell for him. He associated it with quiet, cool alcoves that provided respite from the noise, the pollution, the gritty squalor of the city. As a child he had enjoyed these places, and he regretted that as he grew older, the aroma’s simple enchantment had been superseded by associations of silliness and unease. Maybe the winds had taken that charm to someone else, he reflected, as they now brought someone else to him.

The man was staring up at him with an unflinching gaze. Humbly dressed, he clasped a small clay pipe between his hands which was cylindrical in shape, tapering at the end. A sadhu, he thought. The ragged man sat cross-legged around the single stick of incense which had drawn the two men together. Neither of them spoke. For ten minutes it remained this way, the man putting the tapered end of the pipe to his mouth and inhaling calmly every so often. His guest remained standing. He looked beyond the bony man but watched him at the same time. His mind was gaining momentum and his mouth began to move ever so slightly, but at the threshold of speaking, his jaw dropped down again in silence. This man, this ascetic, with eyes fixed on him, what did he want?

“What do you want?” asked the sadhu. He did not wait for any answers. “Do you come to live like me?” At this he paused and took another puff. His voice was measured and his speech mirrored the economy of his actions. His eyes were a fiery red.

The traveler thought to himself for a minute. “I smelled the incense,” he replied.

“If you like it, take it and be on your way. It is my gift.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t want it.” He had seen there was only one.

“Nothing will content he who is not content with a little.”

The traveler hung around, but did not comment. The man continued, “You will not find what you are looking for here. I was once told when I was young like you: ‘A large mountain has many streams.’ For years I explored this mountain. I have seen the many streams, and I have found the sources of those streams. But I have chosen this clearing now, and chosen to stay here, for it nourishes me, and...”

By this point he had stopped listening. He still didn’t know where to go, and he was beginning to feel like he should have just taken the stick and left. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture or a lesson, or whatever it was that this man was trying to express. He didn’t make eye contact, but he looked at him, examining the creases on his forehead. When this became tiring, he nodded a final time and then asked, “Have you found what is the source of the mountain?”

Caught off-guard by the question, the sadhu briefly showed his bemusement before quickly recovering his wits and replying, “The mountain has always been there. It is the oldest and most important of all things.”

“How can you speak so much about this? Have you ever even climbed to the top?” He had imagined sadhus to be men for whom silence was the source of great wisdom. But he knew that in his own experience, speaking always took him farther from the truth. As his surroundings gave way to night, the peace which had warmed him during the day began to vanish along with them.

“No, I have not climbed to the peak...” he said, gazing thoughtfully, “but I have been there.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean to speak in riddles?” He was getting flustered.

To this the sadhu smiled and said quietly, almost to himself, “The quest in a question is never fulfilled by the answer. You have not yet become akin to how I seemed to you the first time we met. I’m sorry. Come back again when you have lived both sides of the coin. Now choose. Do you wish to see the ancestors or the aliens?”

“What are y–” The old man’s last question jolted within him a feeling of deja vu, which reached him after he had begun to respond in confused dismay. He abruptly fell silent, and as he searched the man’s eyes for clues that would explain the fleeting familiarity, he noticed something quite new. It was the staff, swinging beautifully, which the sadhu had kept by his side for the duration of their encounter. Carved on it were the grooves spiraling up to the culmination which in the crescent moonlight he could see large and vividly, and when it crashed through him and split him open and his head thundered, and for a second made him feel like he was back in the beam between the sky and the earth, he dropped. And then it all leaked out.

Hospital

What happened to life helplessly pouring out of delicately pierced organs, collecting beneath the bed in puddles? If you had gone to view the last drops dripping, you would see where air had kissed the porous openings and breathed sorrow into the room. It was all cleaned up now. The glistening eyes subdued, things had been kept safe. The lab coats could rinse their hands off and turn to each other and remark on a job well done. Which they did, smugly. They paraded their latest opus down the corridor, a seething glare replaced by a blank stare. A fine piece of work.

The rooms are watching him walk by. If they hope he’ll turn and say goodbye, they’re sorely mistaken. Because immediate relief at being released drowns out any nostalgia he might feel for the place– like when a man stands over the failing body of a nemesis in satisfaction. There will be enough time left for the fondness to haunt him later. As it is, the walls of the dark room still echo with the blinding revelation: “Primo Levi was the first to levitate.” He approaches its heavy set door without smelling the Zyklon B, without peering through its tiny window which gave him “Work Will Make You Free” hope not too long ago. The boy had survived Auschwitz, but they had taken his license to kill. It exasperated him, and it didn’t help when he realized this was the year of Bond. At last, he wondered if they would fix the rattling in the ceiling in time for the room’s next patient, and if the mouse would find the cheese before the principal electrocuted his friend.

By the time he steps past the dark room, the ringing walls have been whitewashed. Next thing that comes near is the line he waited in for hours to get the lethal injection only to be given mass-produced biscuits. Had to sit there trying to keep his head straight while trying not to look at the spy in the tie dye that had followed him there from his school. Had to keep it from lolling around to save his hair from the gravy. Had to fight the horrible heaviness– had to lift the weight while Atlas was gone. The boy knew he would pay back debts for the dreadful thing he had done; he just didn’t know what it was. The other kids talked normally. He couldn’t relate. With his feet already fulfilling half their mission, the boy looks straight ahead as the last whiff of cafeteria leaves him.

The blank stare ambles around the corner. His uprightness while walking pleases the lab coats, though he is lacking any semblance of probity. A man and woman who have been walking alongside him for some time now speak to him. He trades words without remembering what is said. The couple awakens his inert mind slightly as he struggles to recall why they seemed familiar, but all the while the blank stare remains aimed at the door as it advances. An unnerving mystery to him when he was at the other end of the hall, the doorknob twists slowly under his cautious hand. One of the lab coats makes an obligatory parting comment which he does not comprehend. The door opens out into a sunny parking lot which floods the boy’s senses more than parking lots usually do.

He is silent, with quiet thoughts, back at the scene of the crime. It is a lot more still now, the room. The carpet where the past was revealed to him, where the universe flashed before his mind’s eye like a near-death experience, where they found him eyes glazed-over drooling; it is still here. He wouldn’t be able to remember these things, though. If the boy lied down face sideways on the carpet now, he would feel only discomfort. He would not see in a solitary glittering speck of dust the embryo of an unborn world– or the course designed for it in the intricate patterns of the oriental rug. Destiny’s DNA would not untangle its double helix and mingle with his own this time, either. There would be no more magic carpet rides.

Those two trees loom, casting a shadow on his right in the yard where he played when he was younger, but they have less of a presence now. Tall and straight they stand at the end of the property down a stone path that he would follow to the play set when he was three feet tall and the bushes on either side made him feel like he was in a maze. He never noticed them when he was little, though, since they were behind the fence. When he looks out the window now, their deadness mocks him, and he tries to shield his inner self from their triviality, which is menacing.

While he rests on the bed in this room, the lady who had walked with him out of the hospital enters the room carrying a tray which holds a cold glass of milk and a plate of macaroni and cheese. It turns out she is his mother. She looks at the boy expectantly and smiles as she brings him the meal. Noticing her presence he remains silent. Mac and cheese is a favorite of his, but he isn’t hungry. Lingering around, she asks him how he is feeling. “Fine,” he says softly. She attempts to strike up more conversation, but he isn’t eager to talk. He hadn’t spoken much lately. If he said anything, it was with his face. Even so, it didn’t say much. To see this hurts his mother in a way similar to how her dull blades are more likely to cut her while she chops vegetables.

High school high

 He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands (high school high)

I remember chilling with Fuzair one of those days that fall.  He came over and warmly greeted my parents as he entered into the living room. I offered him some water, and after he declined, we decided to get some fresh air.

“You see that bush over there?  Now let me show you something...Can you do that, man?”

“Nah, man, I’m good”

“Nah, I mean, you can do it, too.  You’re not jumping over leaves and branches, man, you’re jumping over space.  I mean, don’t think of the bushes, because you’re not jumping over the bushes.  If you think about it wrong, you’re not gonna  make it.  You just gotta jump... I mean just feel the air.  See, it’s like this...Why don’t you do it, man?” 

“Ok, I’ll do it”

“See it’s a lot easier than you think, once you do it.  I remember when I first did it I didn’t think I could do it either.  But now I do it every time”

“Yeah”

“So yeah, man, what were you saying?”

“I think you were telling me what you’ve been learning”

“Yeah.  Well, I’ve been moving so fast, everything around me is slowing down.  It’s like each day is getting longer than the last one, and I’m taking so much more in... I’ve been trying to tap into that forward moving force, you know...that evolutionary force...like how everything keeps progressing and becoming more advanced as time goes on.  I’ve been learning things so fast... Everything just comes to me now.”

“Yeah? Like what kind of things?”

“Well,  I’ve been figuring shit out.  Figuring out the way things are.  I can look at something and understand it now.  Like I mean, you can learn a lot from the simplest objects.  If something is true it should apply to everything.  See that plant over there?  You can zoom in on it and see worlds inside it, or you can zoom out and see how it is a speck.  I mean you gotta make yourself a microscope and a telescope.  Look at shit from all different angles.  But if you just look at the plant, you can learn a lot about existence, you know?”

“Yeah, I think I see what you’re saying.”

“You can learn a lot more on your own just by looking at things.  Like all the stuff in the system only makes sense within the system.  You gotta get out of the system, man.  I feel like it’s holding me back- I can learn a lot more from everything that’s around me.”

“So what about college?”

“I mean I’ll go to college.  I’ll definitely go to colleges and talk to people, share my ideas.  That’s another thing that you’ve gotta do.  Nobody shares their ideas these days.  They are paranoid that someone will steal them, but you’ve got to share the things you know with others so everyone can know them.  You gotta make the people around you better if you want to get anywhere.  What’s the point of becoming enlightened if you’re the only one?  I mean you might be the first, but if you really get there, then everyone else around you should start to become like how you are too.  

“I get what you’re saying, man.  People are mainly out for themselves.” 

“But I’ve been talking too much about it.  The more you talk about it, the less it makes sense.  You lose sight of the truth the moment you’ve realized it.”

“But yeah, man.  I’m probably gonna be out now.”

“Aight, man, it was good chilling.  I’ll see you at school, though.”

A Problem Solved

A piercing siren occupied the stadium as I saw my enemy Steve Waugh celebrating his three point goal with 45 seconds left in the 9^th and final period.

I was competing in the Water Hockey Junior Championship as Midget Cricket, the best player on our team.  Our team, the Atlanta Bone Crushers, were leading by a score of 88-79, but the L. A. Steam was catching up.  As the clock ticked down, the Steam could not turn the tables on us.

Bam!  Steve Waugh had just nailed Mark Taylor, the worst player on our team, into the wall with three seconds left!  Steve Waugh was thrown out of the game, but with no harm done for there was but one second left.  As the buzzer went off Coach Hargrove congratulated us all on our victory.

I walked to a T.C. (transportation via computer) and warped myself to my home. I walked toward the kitchen and took a Coke out of the instant liquid food and beverage machine.  As I opened my beverage, I heard a peculiar sound coming from my room.

I found out it was just my virtual satellite T. V. glasses.  It was showing the “Lumberwoods,” a show with primitive people with slow cars that didn’t even fly.  I changed the setting to video game and played a lifelike simulated basketball game.  I then went to my room and heard my phone ringing. There was somebody speaking. I turned the monitor on and saw the face of a big league agent.

“Hello.  I’m Ricardo Powell.  I’m a big league water hockey agent for the Atlanta Destroyers. I’ve heard that you’re the best water hockey player since Ridley Jacobs five years ago.  You might. even get a place on our team, if you would like to of course.” 

“Of course I would, I’d be delighted,” I replied quickly. 

“Well then I’ll call you later with information on possible arrangements for you.” I could no longer see Ricardo’s face anymore so I too turned the monitor on my phone off and lied down to recline.

Now my father, mother, and brother were eating dinner, well my brother was drinking his but still tasting food.  I asked my parents if I should join the Water Hockey Association of America.  They said I could only join if I did a great job in school.

That night, just before I was going to connect to my school dream maker (my school) I started  thinking about what would happen if many kids turned pro before getting enough education.  I also heard that when you turn pro they get rid of your school dream maker and replace it with a water hockey strategy disk with makes you dream and learn water hockey ‘s many strategies.  This was a problem I know I could solve.

After school, when I woke up, I went to the closest T.C. and warped to the Water Hockey League of America Commissioner, Courtney Walsh, and explained my case.  He said I was right and that he would try to do something to fix that.  As I left his small businesslike office I began to wonder if he would really do anything to solve my problem.

Bzzz.  My alarm block had vibrated too much again and stung me.  I had to get that thing fixed because it never vibrated the right amount to wake me, it kept stinging me.  At school, in my dreams, I played another game of water hockey at break time and scored 22 points of my team’s 41 and I scored five 3-point goals.  My teacher, Mrs. Simon had also told me that if I didn’t get better grades she would suspend me from the school water hockey team.  I took this very seriously and thought what would happen if I wasn’t there.  The Jefferson Public Middle School, one of the few schools in the country with a winning tradition wouldn’t even make the HMSWH Tournament.

That morning I ate breakfast and started studying for math. I flipped through my math book to the section we were working on in school. For some reason by book wasn’t reading so I bumped it on the table. Still, no pictures or sounds came out of it. Since they stopped teaching children how to read books after talking books came out I could not understand a thing the in the book except the letter A. Then I found the contrast and volume dials and changed them. I then could see and listen to the book explaining boring formulas and methods and just as I started understanding them I heard 

 my phone ring.

I picked up the phone and heard the voice of and saw the Atlanta Destroyers’ agent Ricardo Powell filled my ears again. “Hi, is this Midget Cricket? 

“Yes,” I answered.

“ I hope this won’t disappoint you too much, but the league commissioner has enforced a new water hockey rule. He said that any player under 13 could not play water hockey in the big leagues  and any player with less than a B- in school could not play in the big leagues either. Since your only twelve I guess you can’t play.”

“No, its okay I think it would have been better for me to start later anyway,” I replied bleakly.

He turned his phone off and then so did I. Even though I knew I couldn’t play water hockey at the maximum level I still think I helped others by helping Courtney Walsh to enforce a rule to help others.

The next day after I had received my grades back from school I found out I made a 100% grade and could play water hockey without fear of being suspended. That year I played for my middle school and scored a record-breaking total of 46 points in the championship game of the HMSWH tournament. 

After that game I knew, and everyone else did too, that I had the potential of becoming a Michael Jordan of water hockey.