Pong
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A/N: Well this is my first fic and I think I've gotten everything straight (grammar and the like.). I hope you all enjoy and don't be shy to leave a review. (Even a horrible one!)
Through the vastness of space the ball soared silently. And so it would travel for and undetermined amount of time until it reached the end of the world which it called Paddle's End. Paddle's End was exactly that, the place where the paddles couldn't go. The ball was torn; Paddle's End was a horrifying place, only blackness. The ball was terrified of the universe beyond the paddles. It was a tiny ball amidst infinite darkness, the only object for light years on either side.
But on the other side, its life inside this prison was unbearable. The silent blockades that were known to it as paddles, silent sentinels barring him from any sort of life outside the box he was trapped in. How the ball hated the paddles. The fear of the void beyond them was nothing to its hatred of those giant white walls. When it attempted to escape into the void, deciding it'd rather take its chances out there than with them, they would come seemingly from nowhere to knock it the other way. Of course any attempt to escape on the other side warranted another hit from the opposite paddle.
And so as the ball soared towards the paddle -it had no idea which one, it had long since given up trying to keep such petty things as left and right in its mind- it thought of the precious few times it had managed to escape into that universe of blackness. Yes, the ball had been free from the paddle's grasp before; those times were among the best of its life. It recalled that first escape, relived every moment of it as though it were happening right then.
The paddle towered in front of him, a white menace surrounded by the darkness of their world, coming to hit the ball back towards the other paddle which would in turn hit the ball to the paddle it was now moving rapidly towards. But it hadn't moved upwards fast enough, the ball was going to get through! The ball imagined the shocked paddle's reaction, but then thought do these paddles have minds? Are they like me? Just pawns in this game called life, trying to escape?
The ball was still not sure to this day, there was no way to communicate with the paddles, and it had tried. The ball wasn't entirely sure that it could communicate with other balls, if there were any that was.
The ball soared past the paddle, narrowly missing the top of it. Freedom was the first word that came to the ball's mind but it died before the thought could be processed. The ball didn't know what it expected to find out there, maybe some sort of village of other balls, maybe some sort of solitary paradise, perhaps it hadn't thought about it at all, focusing only on the idea of freedom as something intangible. But now the ball was truly free, able to go wherever it was propelled, it wasn't the best way to live, being sent about by changes in his course, completely uncontrolled, but it was more free than the ball had ever been and that was all that mattered.
All of this came and went in the course of a second. The ball saw then the blackness, full and complete darkness for miles outward, with no end in sight. And, the ball had thought bitterly, probably no end at all. The ball had little time to figure out if it was content or not with this new life because almost as quickly as it had been free it saw a white shape above him.
It couldn't be the paddle, how could it have caught up? Ever since the ball had first seen the paddle it had only moved vertically, now it was to block the ball's path. The ball was overcome with anger, hatred of the paddle and everything it represented. Who was the paddle to decide what the ball would do? Who was the paddle to determine where the ball could and couldn't go?
But there was another emotion too, relief; the ball had been terrified of the void and was relieved to find it was not to be alone for the rest of its existence. As much as it hated the paddles they were better than nothing at all right? The ball was never truly sure, so many emotions about its existence. The ball felt sometimes like a puppet made to dance to entertain the cruel gods that ruled over him. These so-called gods watched the ball, entertained by its tortured existence. Oh ye gods how cruel you are.
The ball's reminisce came to a close as the white wall of the paddle rose to block its view. The ball was going to hit it squarely in the center as it usually did. It had been a very long time since the ball had last reached Paddle's End and it was eager to go again and make another attempt at escape. No matter how many times it would try to escape, no matter how many times it would be denied, the ball would still always long for freedom. It was the entirety of the ball's life, the hope that one day its torment would end, that one day the paddles would allow its escape into the void.
Something odd was happening ahead of the ball, something it had never seen before. The paddle was jerking up and down, cutting through the darkness at blinding speed. The paddle became a blur of motion; above all, the ball was confused. Of course the ball also felt the thrill of potential escape. Even more odd, the paddle stopped nowhere near the ball.
The ball's mind was racing. What was happening? Why did the paddle suddenly move away from the ball? Was it in fact a sentient being? Had the paddle finally decided to let the ball escape?
But then the paddle just disappeared, vanished all at once. The ball's confusion was subdued by a sudden memory of its first breath of freedom. Somehow the ball knew it would never be knocked back and forth again. The ball was free now, free to float endlessly among the darkness it so closely associated with freedom.
Terror seized the ball, it would never again see another being; the ball was condemned to a life of eternal darkness and loneliness. It was true that the ball had always been alone but the thought of never seeing the paddles again seemed almost unbearable. The ball needed the paddles; they made its life complete; they were its life. Without them it was just a ball, floating in space, scared, alone, and engulfed in darkness everlasting.
Which life was better the ball asked itself. Endless torture, coming so close to freedom but never having it, or finally being free to live a life of nothingness? Never was there a better case of irony, the ball desired only to be free but that freedom was in and of itself a prison. Bitterly, the ball wished to once more be at the mercy of the paddles, wished desperately for the paddles to return overhead and make the ball whole again.
Everything the ball had ever hoped for was crushed and the ball now longed to return to its prison. If it weren't so depressed, the ball would have laughed at the irony he could still only begin to appreciate. It was just so amazingly beautiful; he had what he had wanted for so long but now wished its dreams gone. The ball supposed that life would always look better on the other side of the paddle. And so the ball did weep as it drifted endlessly into the darkness.