Hag and a bunch of other villagers had convened around fires back where Kestrel and his sons had built tree platforms. It was about midday, judging by the half cloud obscured sun. My guess was it was near its zenith, give or a take an hour or two. Regardless, my stomach was growling, and I was happy to find people handing around clay dishes of potato stew.

Trevor was seated on his backside, and still taller than everyone. Dillard took a spot on a log across the fire pit from Proctor and I. Gak, and Torag, and some other trench diggers came over for a meal as well. I just wanted to be near the big orange flames. The day’s biting wind seeped into my bones.

A kind lady handed me a tough knot of bread. I used it for dipping into my stew. Really, I couldn’t imagine trying to chew the stuff without soaking it in broth first anyway.

Proctor and I took up talking about the team while we enjoyed lunch.

“We’re sure we can find someone capable of growing the grass we need?” I said.

“Not much choice but to figure that out, right?” Proctor said.

“What’s this?” Gak said, a raised a brow between potato bites. “Grass?”

“The ground for our baseball park,” I said. “What the surface will look like. It must be grass.”

“Aye,” Gak said, bowing his head back down to his bowl.

I got the impression he didn’t understand what I was saying, and didn’t much care.

“Other considerations,” Proctor said. “Aspects to think of where our gold stores are concerned.”

“Go on,” I said, broth dripping down my chin. Normally, I’d care not to speak about such things, money particularly given we had a fair crowd sitting, eating around the fire, but for some reason I was feeling less socially reluctant than normal. Maybe the cold wind had addled my brain.

“Contracts,” Proctor said.

“Contracts,” I said, yet more slowly. “Right.”

“For instance, you,” Proctor said. “What do we call you? You are part of the franchise. You’re under contract.”

Everyone enjoying their stew watched us with rapt attention. Without even necessarily understanding what we were talking about, I suppose just watching us, or listening to us talk had its own inherent entertainment value.

“I’ve been declared the Owner,” I said. “That’s the System, that’s not me. I’m the franchise owner.”

“Right,” Proctor said.

“And, I declare myself Team President,” I said. I couldn’t help but feel a small sting of guilt saying it.

“Good,” Proctor said. “Anything else?”

“General Manager,” I said. “I don’t know a lot about baseball, I admit. But, I remember the person in charge of signing players, deciding on the team roster and all of that was the General Manager. I want that person to be me.”

“Makes sense given your ability, the stats, text vision apparatus,” Proctor said.

Gak coughed a little, perhaps a bit of broth down the wrong tube. He stopped and pointed at us while looking at a muddy faced lady sitting beside him. “You understand them?” He said.

The lady shook her head, and had a shy smile. “Like hearing ‘em though,” she said.

“Have you thought about your compensation?” Proctor said. “As the owner, you’d take your fair share of whatever profits the franchise received, but as President and General Manager, you’d earn a salary.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not right now, anyway.”

“You don’t want to take a salary?” Proctor said.

“We can’t afford it right now,” I said.

“I see.”

He didn’t argue, so I knew my intuition was on the mark.

“Let’s talk about you,” I said. “I think you should be on salary.”

“Your prerogative, obviously,” Proctor said. “What are you thinking?”

“How does Vice President sound?” I said.

Proctor smiled. “Sounds powerful,” he said.

“It would be,” I said, “it is. Pays well too.”

That caused him to laugh. “Oh that’s good,” he said.

“And, Assistant General Manager,” I said. “I’m going to want your input on players, and coaches and other personnel for the team.”

“Excellent,” Proctor said, “well, I accept.”

“Great,” I said, and I felt we were being a bit silly, as though these matters were a foregone conclusion anyway, but we were articulating them just as something to do. “We’ll work out what to pay you here shortly.”

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“I’m not fussed,” Proctor said. “It will become apparent as we progress.”

Trevor had finished his stew. He’d normally be reluctant to talk given there were twenty or so people around the fire, but his curiosity must’ve gotten the best of him.

“Can I work for the team?” The seated giant asked. “Pardon if ‘tis impolite to ask.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I’d already been thinking about asking you if you wanted to work for the team.”

“Really?” He said, and he was elated to be thought of in this way. I could see it in his smile.

“Of course,” I said. “I think you’ll be a valuable addition to the team. It’s just a matter of figuring out where you’d fit best.”

Dillard spoke with his mouth still stuffed with stew. “Me, me,” he said. “You can pay me.”

“Ha!” I belched out an actual guffaw. “What would I pay you for, Dillard?”

“You fools, you need them team workers, don’t ya?” Dillard said.

There were a few chuckles from the crowd around the fire.

“Aye, I could be a team worker too,” Gak said.

There were murmurs going around the ring of us seated on the logs. Of course, it was a popular notion if you lived in Moonlight, you wanted to be paid gold for having involvement with this base… ball thing you’d never heard of, but which was being imposed upon you by an unseen force from above.

Put that way, I didn’t know how their stone age minds put it all in context. Maybe that was condescending to think, but, then again the people in this place seemed to take everything in such stride, I felt like their resilience was a super power capable of having them accept, and persist through anything. Far from condescension, I felt more a sense of humility in the presence of these people. Like, they had more to teach me about a great lot of things, than vise versa.

But… the big but:

“What do you know about baseball?” I said to Dillard, and cast a quick glance at Gak as well.

Dillard coughed. He’d finished his stew, but he nearly choked on my question.

“Well,” he said, and I could tell he was stalling for time, grunting, throat clearing. “Uh, it’s your team, the competition you done told us of back a ways.”

“Nothing,” Gak said. “I know nothing about your ways.”

A brain wave hit me like the lightning from a swig of water chestnut soda. I set down my clay bowl, and stood from the log, reticent to take my warmed body away from the fire. But… it was time.

“Come with me,” I said.

Even Proctor didn’t appear to be on my wavelength. He scrambled to set his bowl down, and catch up with me. I marched away from the fire, and out toward the west end of the village where we’d marked out the site for the ball park.

Dillard, Trevor, and Gak followed behind, and so did Torag, the shy lady, and everyone else who’d been with us for lunch.

I felt like the Pied Piper leading this gathering out of the village proper to the big open field.

“What do you have in mind?” Proctor said, catching up to me.

“Something we’ve been needing to do for a while,” I said. “Baseball.”

He nodded, and grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Baseball.”

By the time we’d reached the middle of the field, our group had gone from twenty or twenty five to twice that size. I was so happy so many of the villagers seemed genuinely curious, and even excited about the idea of this team.

Once I reached a spot, centrally located, I stopped, and I turned to face the fifty or so who’d followed. Without prompting at all, they formed a few ranks, and stood there facing me like I was a speaker at a seminar. As uncomfortable as situations like this made me back in the ‘real world’, in this scenario, I decided to run with it.

“Can everybody hear me?” I shouted. Happily, the wind was calm enough I wasn’t going to have to battle it too much in order to be heard.

Everybody nodded.

“Okay, we’re going to talk about baseball,” I said.

“Finally!” Dillard shouted. “Only been at ya fools about it since whens ya got here.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, now it’s time.”

This was the most excited I’d felt since I’d arrived in Moonlight. Electricity flowed through me. It was like a spark at the back of my throat to see so many people staring back at me with enthusiasm on their faces. I should’ve been a gym teacher or something. I feel like actual gym teachers would hear that and die laughing. But, there’s something intoxicating about taking this thing you’re fixated upon, and getting to share in that with others who also appear genuinely interested.

“First of all,” I said, “we play baseball on a field. Like this.”

I waved my arms around, alluding to the entirety of the open space where we all stood. “Think of this like a ball field. We call it a ball park.”

“Which one you call it?” Dillard said. “Field? Park?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Either one.”

That drew a few confused looks.

“And, here’s the thing,” I said. “It’s a field divided up into different parts. There’s an infield, and an outfield. Then there’s foul territory.”

The large group’s enthusiastic looks appeared to dull.

“You may have to show them,” Proctor said. A helpful suggestion.

“Right,” I said. I recognized I was getting ahead of myself.

Get the people involved, I remember thinking. Otherwise, they’re not going to conceive of something abstract that they’d only be able to conjure in their minds. Show them what it’s supposed to look like, I thought. Keep them engaged.

I pointed at the friendly giant. “Trevor,” I said. “Do me a favor, and come out this way.”

I led him out to an open spot in the field farther from the rest of the group. “Okay,” I said to him. “You stand here, if you don’t mind.”

He had the smile of a giddy child, so I knew he was on board.

Next, I called for Dillard, and I walked him past Trevor, and even farther from the rest.

“Proctor if you don’t mind,” I said to my Vice President, and Assistant GM.

“Not at all,” Proctor said. He knew what I was attempting to do.

I led him to an open spot, still farther from the assembled villagers, but closer to them than either Trevor or Dillard.

“Okay, folks,” I shouted. “See these three? Where they’re standing right now, we call that the outfield.”

“Ah,” came a few groans from the villagers. I took them as groans, I’d hoped they were understanding what I was saying, but all bets were off.

“Dillard wave your arm,” I shouted to him, and he did so. “Dillard’s over in what we call left field.”

I had the crowd stand in such a way that Dillard was too their left, and they were facing forward in the direction of this would be outfield.

I had Proctor wave next. “That’s Proctor,” I told everyone. “He’s in right field.”

“What about him then?” Gak said, pointing out toward Trevor. “He ain’t in the left field. And, he ain’t in the right.”

“That’s center field,” I said.

“Aye,” Gak said. “Right.”

“No, center,” corrected one of the ladies in the crowd. “Proctor’s in right.”

“‘Tis what I meant,” Gak said. “He’s in what he called right. The giant’s in center, right?”

And, so it seemed before we were even really getting somewhere, we’d already devolved into Abbott and Costello.

This was going to be a long afternoon.