Critical Mass James didn’t have to worry about Nate blindsiding him, which he sometimes did even in practice. That all changed, though, when a play called for a short post pattern that would put James directly in Nate’s middle linebacker territory. He ran the play and caught the ball and when he turned, Nate’s helmet and face filled his vision – facemask-to-facemask, so close he saw beads of sweat on Nate’s cheeks, heard him grunt on impact, smelled his sour breath. Lifted into the air, seemingly weightless and floating for a instant, James suddenly fell hard backwards into the ground with such force, and with Nate’s full weight landing on top of him, that he spit out his mouthpiece. At first, everything went dark and for a moment completely quiet. Then he heard leaves rustled by the wind, heard tweets of birds, and smelled freshly cutgrass. But all this was drown out next by a terrible guttural roar that filled his ears, so close the fiery, viscous breath clung to him; hot spittle fell on his face. He opened his eyes to find a large, dark presence blotting out the sun, and James saw staring back at him – glowing lizard eyes from behind a facemask – it. It roared again, and James hugged the football to his chest, comforted by the coarse leather, knowing that he’d held the ball to complete the pass. Letting the ball roll from his hand and turning on his side, a stabbing pain tore through his ribs. “Nate!” James heard the coach yell. “What the hell was that?” James got to his feet. Whatever it was, he wanted to get away from it. On his return to the huddle, the coach intercepted James, asking if he was okay. He said he was, even though he wasn’t. The pain in his ribs burned through his side. Perhaps the coach noted James pained expression because he told him to go to the sidelines. Sitting on the bench holding his ribs, James watched the coach approach Nate, and as he drew closer, with each step, Nate – for lack of a better term – was puffing out,
regarding arts & letters
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