[Fiction] A kickabout

If you don't like football (soccer), I recommend skipping this. The end moral is the same regardless, but I draw heavily on football to illustrate what I'm trying to say.

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I took an unusual route home that day. For some reason, I felt like walking past the old 5-a-side astroturf, and reliving the memories of events that took place on there. A few played across my mind, some of which I smiled at, and a few at which i cringed as well. Thankfully there were not many to cringe at, but, I wondered if it could really have been so long since I zipped about the pitch as if it were my own.

I got there. There was someone alone, practicing. I saw him place the ball a fair distance from the goal, take a few steps back, and lightly run and hit the ball. It was a perfect connection, and the ball flew sweetly into the net. He fetched it, placed it in the spot, and repeated, over and over again. It flew in every time. I admired his persistence, which reminded me of my own solo training sessions. How lazy I had become in the intervening years was not something I wanted to dwell on.

I stepped on the pitch, and felt the artificial surface crunch under my shoes. He regarded my entrance with some surprise, but relaxed almost immediately, and did not indicate any discomfort with my presence, or gesture for me to leave him. I nodded. He nodded back. I motioned that I wanted the ball, and he passed it to me. It was a little off, but I reflexively trapped the ball, and brought it under my control with ease. At least I still had something left. I felt the ball through my shoes, and wished I was wearing proper football shoes, instead of the walking ones I had on. They were comfortable, yes, but they were little good for now. They would do though.

I passed it back, as did he, and we gradually increased the speed, until it was impossible to increase the tempo anymore with the ball on the ground. We started passing the ball through the air, slowly at first, allowing the ball to bounce one or twice before sending it back, before progressing to volleying it back and forth as the fell dropped out of the sky, not allowing it to touch the ground. It was exhilarating, and we kept this up for a few minutes before one of us (I won't say who) mishit the ball, and it sort of dribbled to a stop.

We rested for a while, and then resumed. After a while, I passed the ball to him, and started running towards the goal. He read my mind, and with one touch sent the ball to where I was going to be, allowing me to run on to it and comfortably hit it with a serious amount of force. It flew in, and for a brief moment, I felt young again. He acknowledged my effort with a half-nod, half-tilt of hi head. I set him up as he had for me, and watched him thump the ball into the net with more poise and grace than I had done. We continually set each other up, but bored of this quickly.

When the ball next came to me, I acted on an impulse, and began to run with the ball towards him, attempting to dribble past him. He had enough time to steel himself, and easily took the ball off me. Then he tried to dribble past me, but I got it off him, more by luck and instinct than intention. "First to five?" He nodded. Incidentally, that was the only time I remember us talking.

We were somewhat evenly matched, him having youth and me experience, so it would take some time before either of us would be successful five times in our attempts to take the ball past the other. The score was tied at three each when something amazing happened. I took the ball past him, but in the most amazing way, one I haven't been able to recreate since. As I approached him whilst running, I touched the ball three times with my right foot in quick succession. The first took the ball slightly to my left, and his right. The second moved the ball back towards my right, and his left. The third sent the ball through the tunnel which the first two touches had made his legs form, out of instinct. This happened in a flash, and I was no more aware of how I did it than he was, the surprise on my own face matching that of his.

I lost the match, in the end. I kept trying to recreate what it was that I had done, and so lost my focus. We touched palms when he won, and I set off home, leaving him to his practice. Every now and then I passed by the same route, but never saw him again, though I saw plenty of others, and occasionally played with them, always acquitting myself well, but never covering myself in glory. Those days were gone.

It is more than 5 years now, since the day I performed that trick, yet the details remain razor sharp, and I often replay it in my mind. I know I didn't consciously will it, and I know it was no unconscious reflex from training, since I had never done it before. I was aware of myself doing it, but felt a strange disconnect, as if it were not me doing it, but rather I was channeling from something greater than me. I also knew, somehow, that the attempt would work, that in that particular instance, I would be successful in what I did (I probably should have been attempting to do something else, maybe I would have been successful there). I wonder if that's what life is when body, mind and soul are united, and act as one. Is this what happens on a greater scale to Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp? Did they plan those beautiful goals, or did they suddenly get inspired?

Moving away from football, is this what happens when artists, poets and writers are in "flow", and beautiful, amazing works just seem to create themselves? More importantly, is this what happens when every fibre of your being is devoted to the service of God, when you say the right thing, do the right thing, without quite knowing how, yet being dimly aware of doing so? And knowing that what you do will work? Is this what it means to be channeling from something greater than yourself? I honestly don't know...I've never experienced a moment like that since. Maybe that was just a taster of what such life is like, and the reason I experienced it during a football game was because that was the only way it would make sense to me.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm not sure I ever will.