Hope dies last

I was there because I had no where else to be. I was there because he had mentioned–in a passing comment–that he might be there too. The Bar was filling up. Five minutes to kick off. Four minutes to kick off. Three, two, one. The ball dropped. The match began. Distraction can be good, I thought, and settled back, my eyes on the screen.

The screen reminded me of some other nights. Nights where I could feel his presence occupying the same space as me from my first step in. There is an excitement–isn’t there?–before watching a match between two giants. Palpable tension written on the faces of spectators. I sense him. I know he is there–before seeing him–because the room suddenly crackles with the same type of electricity. But this night, it is quiet. The energy absent. He is not in the room. I feel it.

I feel it the entire first half. I watch the numbers on the left hand of the screen. 33:42, 33: 43, 33: 44. Seconds that crash into minutes. Minutes that slowly tick into hours wasted. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here. But, I can’t seem to stop myself because it is easy. To come as I do, to watch, to wait my turn.

I turn my eyes–as the players run off the field to hear a new strategy–away from the screen. Two older men discuss stats. Attempts, fails, successes. I think of my own goals, my own misses. There is a group of four or five people at a near table, each so different from the other that I can find no visible reason for what brings them or binds them together. Perhaps, it is as simple as ‘for the love of the game’.

The game, the one that I seem to have been playing all alone for far too long, has begun to tire me. I pick up my bag and say my good nights. “You’re not going to watch the rest?” “I’ll watch it at home”. Home is safe, it holds no expectations and at home I won’t buckle under the pressure that the absence of a person absurdly creates. For at home, the absence of a person is just another night.

Another night turns into yet another day. The bitter quietness, the angry disappointment still there foreshadowing an uncertain resolve. Perhaps it is time to slip off my boots and step away from the game?

I haven’t decided.