July 17, 2018

shouting from the bleacher seats

Their voices had gotten hoarse from weeks of yelling toward the ant-sized
players in the pitch. Even if their team was teetering toward certain defeat, 
they kept at it, launching feverish cries from hundreds of yards away,
feeding the air with a frothy brew of urgency and hope, their reserves holding out
until the final whistle blew. On television, it was hard to distinguish between sides
or bodies, the stampede of cheers rising in unison, rivalries sharing the real estate of a stadium, colliding past all borders. This is not to say there weren't bitter words thrown
between neighbors, wild invectives flung in a moment's thrill or misfortune.
But this is how I want to remember it: How everyone stood, shouting
from the bleacher seats, believing they were exactly where they belonged.