A baseball dissolving into the void [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdPRTWSIryMj0mvPLiyn2qyNcJeKJjMxj6z2wllDRvTs5N5CRT-eWpEJZf7588GJTAYyNghfbN8bHRhpdGq0ALSfjer6BmJCPT6mGuB5qthJZLpwbboleci_vDc3lHtlYcNRIkyJ_B_EXCut4-4C9bGnM5P?key=ydQkOJdag5XUl5PwiJ-eyPnV]
Alice wished there was a rule against players talking during baseball games. In the dugout, especially. And on the field. Just listen to the coaches. Do what needs doing. Why talk about it? Why scream about it? Most sports could do with less shouting overall.
Not that they had coaches here. Nor dugouts. Nor even a true baseball diamond.
This wasn’t a serious game, not for her at least, just a bunch of guys and girls who lived nearby getting together for a bit of end of the school year fun at the park. Then, they had split up into teams, Seawall High athletes versus Oleander High athletes.
She had regretted showing up right then and there. She was promised fun. And food. Couldn’t they just play ball? Why invite the drama? Why break up into “rival” schools? Why did schools need rivalries in the first place?
“Knock it out of the park, Anderson!” some Junior girl Alice barely knew screamed at her from the sidelines.
“She couldn’t hit a ball if it…” she tuned that guy out.
She tuned everyone out and focused on the pitcher. Her fellow seniors had been holding back, at least somewhat. No need to risk injuries while having fun, not when scholarships were on the line for many of them. Alice personally had secured a track scholarship, with TAMU recruiting her for both the 400-meter hurdles and long jump. The look on their basketball recruiter’s face when she explained she could get the same full ride from their own track team for less of a personal time investment, plus with her Aggie Scholars scholarship—
The ball came straight down the middle, fast and hard.
Not too fast, though. Alice swung and met force with force.
So much for holding back, she thought, watching the ball soar over the field, past the trees lining the edge of their “outfield.” Those watching cheered and groaned in equal measure.
The outfielders scratched their heads, none willing to search for the ball in the densely wooded area. She didn’t blame them.
“I’ll get it,” Alice called, tossing the sweaty batting helmet aside. She ran straight, following the path of her ball. Running the bases was a bit of unnecessary showboating after hitting a home run, she’d always felt. “Just keep playing.”
No one argued. Someone produced another ball and tossed it to the pitcher who was stretching out his arms and getting ready for the next throw.
At the edge of the trees, Alice considered turning back. It was just a ball. Someone had brought a bucket full of them.
She glanced back at the clump of students shouting at the ongoing game, then stepped into the woods.
The sounds of the outside world faded quickly as she slid between some bushes, regretting her day’s choices. Her running shorts and tank top provided maximum freedom of movement, not protection from prickly bushes.
Why had she trusted Maria’s promise of a fun afternoon at the park?
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Food. She’d been bribed with food. The promised BBQ waiting back at the girl’s house had better be darn good. Which, it always was.
Maria’s pool also had that nice, big hot tub. Could she get away with wearing her big “leave me alone” headphones while in the hot tub? Probably not. She was too self-conscious to wear them during a social event anyhow. Such a hassle. Maybe she could sink down until her nose was barely above the water, or…didn’t Maria have some snorkels in the crate of pool stuff stored in the garage?
Alice snorted at the thought of herself snorkeling in the hot tub to avoid attention. Better if she just leaned back and kept her eyes closed. Most would take the hint.
Winding back and forth where she could, Alice searched the general area where the ball should have landed, not forgetting to look up in case the ball got stuck in some branches. It had been long enough her team had probably changed sides. She was supposed to be in the outfield, but…meh.
Maybe she could spend the rest of the game “searching for the ball?” That would go over—
She’d stepped over a fallen log and straight into a deep, dark hole. Trying to catch onto something, anything, she flailed her arms.
There was nothing for her to grab. Nothing to stop her fall.
She was going to break something.
…Her fall continued for far too long.
She was going to die.
She was going to go splat on the floor of some underground cavern. The rescue workers would need spatulas.
A closed casket funeral for sure.
She never got to say goodbye.
Mom and Dad. Charlie, Dave, and Matt, her over-protective big brothers. Sprocket, Squirrel Chaser Supreme.
Maria, well, this would teach her the consequences of encouraging Alice to attend “fun” social events.
She—
Around her, reality shattered.
The darkness gave way to a living, breathing world of horrors and beauty. It unfolded and collapsed back in on itself, its beating heart a pulsating choreography of terrible creation and sweet oblivion. Distant nebulae spun and danced, revealing unique stories forever untold before dispersing into the void.
Her thoughts spun, grasping at fragments of understanding. Reality twisted and turned. Space? Gravity? Time? They were out there, somewhere, doing whatever they did when no one watched.
Alice floated, untethered from all constraints. The familiar tapestry of existence faded into a distant memory, replaced by an endless sea of shifting patterns and colors. Celestial landmarks dissolved into an abstract mosaic, their brilliance lost amidst the boundless expanse of impossibilities.
Time and space became mere whispers in the face of incomprehensible forces which exerted themselves upon her very being. She was a solitary wanderer in a symphony of cosmic chaos, where realities merged and clashed in an intoxicating smorgasbord. The boundaries of her perception melted away, leaving her adrift in a realm beyond description, a realm where the impossible became reality and reality remained forever impossible.
She felt herself unraveling, unwinding. She wasn’t built to exist in this place of nothing and everything. She was but dust in the vastness of chaos, and to dust she would return, the particles of her self forever changed by her experiences. Maybe someday that dust would again form a being not unlike herself, the poor fool, never capable of grasping her own insignificance, her inability to matter on a cosmic scale.
She… Was that a baseball?
An external pressure enveloped her as she reached out towards the familiar object, freezing her in place just before she could close her hand over the ball she followed into this chaotic maelstrom. The stabilizing force which held her in place claimed her and fought against the destruction of creation.
Before her eyes the baseball broke down and changed into more of the fundamental building blocks underpinning reality, which drifted through her unmoving fingers like sand.
Then, with a rush of noise and pressure, she landed hard on stone, cracking the back of her head.
Above her stood a blurry figure, who said something, quite possibly a prayer over her corpse, and gestured in her direction.
She needed a nap.
Falling out of reality had been quite exhausting.
Or, maybe she hit her head too hard, and the rest was just some odd nightmare. Maybe someone else hit a home run, and she got bopped in the head. Maybe…she'd figure things out when she woke up.