Small Worlds

The house was quiet when he placed the phone back into its holder. For a time he stood and regarded the steady rhythm of his breath. Outside the window was the blear of students returning to their families. The wooden boards were cold through his woolen socks. He looked about the living room and the wideness of the space unfilled. In the minutes that followed he remained still and contemplated the worth of promises, named or unspoken.

His basketball was in his bedroom. He retrieved it and walked again to the living room and traversed the floor to the dark ottoman where he had received the university scholarship offer and sat with his hands clasped and ball pressed to the crease of his hip. He studied the phone again. Slowly he rocked to and fro with the ball at his thigh, a meditative pendulum as a father cradles an infant. The ball left streaks of dust and dirt on his school uniform.

In time he heard the house's entrance door snap shut and he stood and placed the ball upon his seat. He saw his sister framed at the hallway with her black hair down and smile innocent and adoring. He wiped his hands along the seam of his pant leg and mouthed a customary greeting. She moved to the kitchen. He glanced at the phone and said he forgot some things at school and needed to step out for a moment. She answered an acknowledgment.

At the hallway entrance he laced his basketball sneakers to his feet. His sister passed between rooms, hair tied up, asking if he forgot his ball, it was out on the ottoman. No, he called back, he wasn't going to play. He opened the house door and trekked out into the late afternoon. Each footfall was reluctant and heavy. Prisoner steps. Not of one entering a world smaller but a man released into a land changed and uncertain.

He walked the road to the school gym and heavy thoughts blocked the muted gabble of athletic clubs from his ear. When he reached his destination he stood outside with his hands sheathed in his pant pockets. Leather echoed the hardwood of the gym, dribble dribble. A net breathed. Swish. The noises tumbled with a distinctive meter like an ancient song. He waited outside the gym doors. Dribble. Dribble. Swish. The tri-measure was Mitsui's. Dribble. Dribble. Swish.

Dribble. Dribble.

Swish. The sounds echo the caverns of the halls and Mitsui is the center of sonance. He sees the game expand in his vision and the frenzied din of a crowd conjoins them. Mitsui is unburdened of an impaired knee and he winds across the courts, a luminescent thing tracing across a constellation of sweat-bright players. The indistinct defenders scrabble to contain a flame-red jersey that puppets a ball weaving vigorously between pawing limbs chancing at its beating pulse. An identical fiery uniform lights upon him. He is the lone burning tree in Mitsui's travels. His feet uproot and the shade of his immense body presses upon Mitsui's foes. The spectres collide into his trunk and drift as displaced sparks where Mitsui steps. He meets the eyes of Mitsui. Words are not necessary on this sacred floor. Discrete bodies with communal vision. He lumbers to where the rim will be and the ball jerks into Mitsui's hands for the pass and he reaches out to

the cold door pressed against his fingertips.

The long training days and small comforts. Stepping into a blessedly cool night. Pleasant aches from grueling practices. Exhaustion sifting sparse unguarded words between comrades. They were behind him. His hand slipped to his side. He turned away. He walked. Sunset choked across the mulberry horizon in an inflamed arc. He walked. Leaves drifted to pavement. Swish. Swish. Swish.

He saw Tatsuhiko Aota at the school gates. A lone figure shadowed to the entrance like a mound of volcanic glass. He looked at his old acquaintance with tired eyes. With a well muscled arm Aota set the judo training bag down, slicked a hand through dark hair rigid with grease and sweat. Close, he smelled the damp sourness of spent exertion from Aota.

Aota nodded at him and said his name.

Great work in the Nationals, Aota would have continued.

I got a sports scholarship to Shintai, he would reply, and they revoked the offer today.

Basketball is a terrible sport anyway.

He would turn his face away and look to the side.

I don't mean that. I never did. You know that.

Yeah.

What are you going to do now?

Entrance exams.

School's never been a problem for you.

I'll do fine.

But it won't be Shintai.

He wouldn't answer immediately and the admittance would be slow and at the edge of pain like a drying wound. No. It won't be Shintai.

Aota hooked his training bag onto his broad shoulders.

Judo is not just about throwing, Aota would have said, it's about learning to fall. Ukemi.

Ukemi, he would have repeated. He remembered the word.

To master an art, you have to master falling.

He nodded. He stepped past Aota, silent. He didn't look back and imagined the other young man leaving to take a separate road even though he didn't hear any footsteps but his own as he took the long path home to where the street courts would be.

By the time he saw the mix of players chasing an orange ball across concrete it was dusk and the youngest had left to return to their homes. He stood at the fences in his school uniform and sneakers and watched the clumsy manner the others played. He admired the missed passes and the pores in the defense that stood naked and glaring. The clang of the missed shots. He watched and waited. A mature play developed from the mess of imprecise and inefficient movements like a cicada emerging from its shed covering and he nodded approval.

Someone noticed him. He indicated he wanted in on next game. When it was his time he stepped onto the courts and loosened the collar of his shirt. The sunlight was a bare flicker crawling across the players. Elsewhere the immensity of his body would collect gawking looks stolen and conspicuous. He joined the losing team and looked across their faces to remember his circumstantial allies. They looked at him with expectation. Only his skill was of import.

The game began. Tanned cowhide slapped between his hands like cracks of tide and he slammed and beat his way across the courts. Sweat sparkled upon his skin like morning dew, like ocean clinging to suncoppered skin upon surfacing. He waded across bodies and shouted orders that echoed the permieter. He was more than himself on the courts, ascended to a collective that amplified the fundamental nuances of his character. He loved the game. It could not leave until breath left his body.

They played until it was full dark. They heard sounds from a distant world. Cars sputtering. A mother calling. Street lights humming. They played until the rim blended into night and they were all shadows. When the game ceased the quivering ache of muscles told of his return to mortality. He fell to the cement and took in bales of air with measured pants and looked to the stars and the remains of light granted to them.

When he returned home he saw his sister sitting on the ottoman wiping his basketball. She looked up and smiled at his straggly appearance. He raised an open hand to the side of his head. He palmed the pass in a dusty hand. The ball was warm from touch like the heat of blood. He looked at the sphere with a reverent fondness, a love of sacrifice given and received. He pressed it to his sweat-crusted forehead.

"I have something to tell you."

-End-

Author's Note: Title from the recently passed musician Mac Miller. Rest in peace.

"The world is so small, till it ain't..."