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First Place Winner of the Novus Literary Arts Journal High School Creative Writing Contest

I know foggily of the way my grandfather used to sit in his chair and look at me. He was ninety-one, and I was eight. Combined, our ages could have nearly turned a century– I never knew him well. I know his stories and his sayings. Sayings so clever that, anytime in doubt, my father would attach his name to a clever, anonymous aphorism.

“That’s what Homer used to say.”

Or,

“Dad used to say that.”

I heard, through many, of his vivacity in business. Of how he made his fortune in Nashville from a deal written on the back of a napkin. He was a bookbinder and he, “could make paper do anything he wanted.”

He was stationed in an electric wheelchair for the latter end of his life. In his own bed, he died peacefully. I’ve heard his stories and, as a Southern gentleman, of his involvement in flame-lit circles. And of his severance from those circles.

My only memories of him are, most potently, checkers. I hate the game checkers, now, because it doesn’t involve enough strategy. I would play my grandfather as he sat in his wheelchair. I played the black pieces and always lost viciously. I remember how he would peer, hunched, through his stacks of my murdered tokens at the game board. I remember how, after he’d beaten me, he offered to handicap himself by playing with his non-dominant hand.

He still beat me. I was stunned.

I always wanted to go fishing with him, but never did. I don’t like fishing, now, although it’s been a while since I’ve tried it.

My final memories of him are microscopically hollow. He was in hospice, and couldn’t speak. He was listening to something that I didn’t understand, and my dad only explained it to me as “one of his favorites. He’s listening to it so he doesn’t miss any of it.”

Now I know that my father could have meant anything– miss it, or miss it?

He asked if I wanted to talk to Grandaddy.

I said no.

Grandaddy died, peacefully, on August 16.

It was a wonderful funeral, now that I think about it. He had, it seemed, hundreds of friends that popped out of rich southern homes to pay their due. I remember my dad’s eulogy, but only some of it. He spoke. Something along the lines of:

“And Homer returned from his first year of college, expecting to continue living with his parents. Everything was swell. He made it back and enjoyed the company of his family, who had been gently nagging him to move out into the world. Only then did he realize, when he wandered into his room, that his mother had sold his bed…”

And the funeral hall quivered with hollow, smiling, wet laughter, still missing this wonderful man that I knew nothing about.

***

As a teenager, I became remarkably interested in business. I was interested in blazing my own trail, mobilizing people, managing a company, and trying to provide the best service possible. My grandfather was not on my mind. I asked my father about contracts and signatures. How did so much responsibility condense into a scribble on paper? How could you be thrown in jail for scribbling on the wrong thing? Why did you scribble your name?

I asked my father how contracts were signed. He explained,

“Well, not everything has to be written down. People make contracts all the time without signing anything. Any time you take something out of a store, you promise, like a contract, to trade money for it on the way out.”

It blurrily made sense to me. My father noticed.

“Writing is usually just the best way to make sure everything is good in the deal. If you write down everything that you’ll do, and the other person writes down everything that he’ll do, then it makes it really easy. Signing the bottom is just the way that the government knows you promised to do something.”

It became a little clearer. “So you can just make a contract on anything? Fake stuff?”

“Well it’s not fake stuff, but pretty much. Grandaddy made his money from a deal on the back of a paper napkin.”

“Oh, that’s cool. How?”

“He was a bookbinder. I’ll tell you the story later.”

And I waited. And he told me.

***

When a person decided to order a new carpet, the carpet company would send them a sample book, including all the small, cut squares of carpet that they offered so that the customer could decide which carpet they wanted. The company had to buy the books off of someone, and those people ran a carpet-sample-book-making company.

However, this sample-book company was having problems affording their binding. The binding needed to be unique for such a strange book. It needed to be strong but flexible, and the sample-book making company didn’t know enough about the business of paper-binding to try and streamline the process. They had been getting their books bound in New York for twelve dollars each.

They contacted my grandfather, who was in the paper-binding business at the time. They met in the 40th Avenue Cafe, and the company, represented by three men, brought one of the sample-books for Homer to inspect.

“We need a better binding.” The cafe clinked around them and blue winter light shone through the large windows.

My grandfather looked at the sample-book. “Sure. I know what you mean.”

The coffee steamed and smelled dark. The company representatives looked at each other.

“I can probably do this for a quarter.”

A pause. “A quarter? A quarter of what?”

“A quarter. Twenty-five cents.”

“For the whole binding?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“I want thirty percent of the company.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m the best paper-binder in Nashville.”

“We can’t afford that.”

“You can’t afford these books. Watch.”

And he sketched out the comprehensive financials of the company on a paper napkin with a pen he kept in his breast pocket. He looked up at the men.

A beautiful young waitress swirled in, smiling, with arms full of hot food. A round of thank-you’s tittered through the four of them. She left, and the men watched her leave. They looked back to my grandfather with their politeness vanished.

“Can you really do it for a quarter?”

My grandfather paused and his young eyebrows crinkled. “I can show you.”

He threw on his overcoat and asked them to follow his car to his office. His breath fogged after he shut the door, and he could hardly feel the keys as he clambered into the workshop. The men followed him in. The light flicked on, and my grandfather began to hum. He gathered the materials like a practiced craftsman, and the businessmen, suddenly apprehensive, shut the blinds and windows. Everything was illuminated by a single, bright bulb over my grandfather’s workstation.

He worked quickly– mocking up a sample-book in a few minutes and binding it securely. The men had never seen anyone work so fluidly. His hands danced. As far as they were concerned, dark magic coursed through his veins.

“Here.” my grandfather held up the mock-book, weighed down with lead squares in place of the carpet samples. He handed the still-sticky book to the representatives, who flipped through it, checked the binding, flipped it open and let it hang freely above the carpet, and were amazed when it held. They flipped it closed and blinked slowly in the dim light.

“How much did it cost?”

My grandfather shrugged, and counted some ingredients in his head. He looked at them.

“Thirteen cents.”

The men’s heads spun like roulette wheels.

“Or thereabouts.”

***

And thus my family’s small fortune was born on the back of a paper napkin. Everything was translated from the “fake stuff” to real, cold signatures scribbled darkly on official paper, where dollar signs really meant dollars and breaker lines split the page like pillars of the earth.

My grandfather was a father of three, like my father. He raised two girls, artists, and a grounded, working son. My dad was the youngest. Homer’s two elder daughters are my aunts– one is gently-estranged, and the other is so far down the limb in the family tree that she’s spying the ground, calling my father a racist with her glass full of his liquor, holding antique grudges like the bones of a lost Tyrannosaur.

My father’s oldest sister, Laura, is wonderful in the way an older sibling is. She took my brothers and me on trips, expeditions, and adventures that circled the town, the circus, and the state. I would sit on the roof with her and watch the garbage truck shake the trash can into its vast open bed. I rode an elephant in the circus with her. She’d pick me up from class and do the chicken-dance with me in preschool. When she was done, we ate Krispy-Kreme and threw rocks into the creek that lazily circled a nearby office building.

Laura is wonderful.

And she loved Homer.

***

In Laura’s senior year of high school her class took a celebratory field trip, riding a thundering bus in lazy circles around the city.

They couldn’t leave the state because one of her classmates had a recital in town.

In the mid seventies, the drinking age in the South was eighteen years old. The seniors took full advantage of that rule, typically, but the rule for this final trip was that there would be absolutely no drinking. It was a silly rule. The kind of rule that, when suggested, only causes students to look at each other, wink, and use solo cups instead of wine glasses. It meant nothing.

Left in the hotel one night, my aunt and a couple of her friends stole away into the boys’ room. One of the boys, known for smuggling and sneaking, ran off to the liquor store down the street to buy three bottles of rum and two jugs of punch.

The drink was sticky sweet and seductive. My aunt Laura says she can still smell it.

Having barely drunk two cocktails, my aunt, her friends, and the boys jumped at the sound of the door hammering. One of the boys, drink still in hand, automatically rushed up to answer it:

“I got it!”

Frantic tinkling of glasses and bottles answered this claim.

“Wait! No–”

“Shhh!”

“Put it under the couch!”

“Don’t answer it!”

Before rational thought could reach his mind, he peeled the door open and had his cup seized by the supervisor, Mrs. Susan. She, dressed like a sleepwalker with the eyes of a devil, hair in a frenzy, screeched at the students to “Give it!” The students sputtered apologies and excuses, and through the confusion, she grasped the rum and dumped it directly onto the hotel carpet. Its dark color pooled quickly into a permanent, blotchy stain.

The students were silent.

***

“… Mr. Brown?”

“M’yes?” Homer sat up in bed groggily with the phone. His sagging smile lines were illuminated by the glow of the table-lamp.

“Um, sir, we’ve caught your daughter.” The man stuttered. “Drinking, she was, on the class trip. And we would like for her to return home immediately.”

“Hm?” My grandfather scratched his beard. “Drinking?”

“Yes, sir. We understand your frustration and are sorry for any sort of inconvenience–”

“She’s been drinking since she was fourteen.” He yawned.

“Um, well, yes, sir, but I–”

“I don’t see any problem.”

“Well, sir, you see– it- it was against the rule–” And he was cut off by a violent handoff of the receiver. Immediately came the screeching, high-pitched tone of Mrs. Susan.

“Mr. Brown–!”

Her tone was different. My grandfather stiffened in bed. He was awake.

“Come pick up your daughter immediately!” She inhaled. “Never have I ever seen such disrespect in this academy– it is an outrage!”

“Ma’am–” he felt warm.

“I am awestruck! Completely bewildered– she’ll stay in her room for the rest of the trip thinking about what she’s done. And I–”

“Excuse me…”

She did not stop. “I think- I think– you should be ashamed of yourself for raising such a daughter!” The pitch was wildly high. “I ought to throw her headfirst out of the academy–”

“Don’t you touch a hair on her head!” Thunderous. “I’ll sue the school for every damn penny you’ve got. You work for me, miss. I could have you begging on the corner of 5th Avenue by nodding–” He paused.

The other end was silent.

“Give the phone to Laura.” My grandfather said.

Mrs. Susan handed the phone to Laura. On the phone, Laura was crying.

“Oh my God, Dad, I’m so sorry.” She coughed and broke out again into sobs, “I’m so sorry. I feel awful, Daddy, I shouldn’t have–”

“What were you drinking?”

She sniffed. “What?”

“What were you drinking?”

“Um, rum and punch.”

My grandfather sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Rum and punch?” He adjusted and swung to the side of the bed. “Could’ve been anything else. I thought I taught you better. Must’ve been too sweet.”

“Yeah, it was. It was.” She sniffed again.

My grandfather laughed imperceptibly. “Of course. You wanna come home?”

“M’yeah.” It was pitiful and quiet.

“Okay. I’m on the way over. Your mother and I are leaving for Chicago in the morning. You won’t even have to repack your bags.”

He heard her suddenly beaming through the phone. “Really?”

“Of course.”

Relief passed through her. Her voice was still quiet. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” He adjusted the phone to the other side of his head. “Okay, honey. Gotta go. I’ll see you in a second.”

He hung up.

***

I’m sure the shadow of my grandfather still windily wanders the streets of Chicago, shaped to the slender forms of my aunt and grandmother as they skipped the sidewalks. I’m certain their laughter still echoes in the finest hotels in the city, and the rum stain is still sitting silently in the carpet of an unnamed hotel. I know that the same gale that blew his overcoat blows mine.

In downtown Nashville, I know that a certain paper napkin, darkened with pen, bounces like a tumbleweed along my streets. I know that the binding glue, on his desk, is still sticky.

I know the lone bulb still glows warmly.

But I also know that he will never be behind my checker pieces again. I know that he’ll never tell me his own stories.

I’ll never fish with him. I’ll never know what he was listening to before he died.

The world may never explain to me the cause of the sticky-sweet laughter that bubbled in the funeral hall. He’ll never teach me to bind a book.

I wonder if he heard me run away from him in his final hours.

I can never ask him.

All that I know is that, to this quiet and brilliant man,

I know I never said goodbye.

Second Place Winner in the 2026 Novus Literary Arts Journal High School Creative Writing Contest

“Who are you when no one is looking?” Just the thought of the question brought a lump to my throat. How can you be sure of who you are when you’re posing as everyone else? When you watch coming-of-age movies, the cliques are clear: popular kids, athletes, art kids, and quiet kids. I was in every group, yet didn’t fit neatly into any of them. Like a meal with too much seasoning, I didn’t know what to be.

Identity is a strange thing because when you first think about who you are, there isn’t a question about it. However, while everyone else turned off their lights and drifted to sleep, I lay awake debating who to be the next day. I picked up the habit of studying people’s personalities and recycling their traits to make a “better” version of myself. Growing up, I found it difficult to make friends because I didn’t “fit in” with the other kids. Whether it was because of race, culture, beliefs, or even interests, people always came up with a way to stereotype me. So, the easiest escape was to become someone else.

I was never an outgoing kid, so in 2nd grade, when my mom told us that we were moving, I was thrilled. I thought the switch would be easy. “Maybe I can finally make some friends.” Who was going to tell an eight-year-old that Georgia was nothing like Michigan? My first culture shock came in my 3rd grade classroom when the first thing I heard was the grit of a strong country accent. We definitely weren’t in Holland anymore. Even as a little Wasian kid, I stood out more than anything else in that classroom. I wanted to jump into a conversation, but I couldn’t relate to these kids at all. They grew up feeding chickens and going to the lake; I grew up wondering how many jackets I would need before playing outside. I spent the next few weeks observing. What do these kids like? How can I be their friend? By week three, I finally had the guts to walk up to the group of softball girls I’d been eyeing.

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Oh, I like running.”

Lie number one: I don’t do cardio. I only said that because I had seen them all playing tag a few days earlier. They asked if I wanted to join the school’s running club, and I obediently said yes. It was either running with them or against them, and right now, they were the only people who stuck by me.

It’s not like I didn’t try to be myself. I’d occasionally drop my interests into conversations, but I either got ignored or made fun of. One day, I brought some of my favorite Lao dishes that my mom had packed the night before. Food is a big deal in a Laotian household; it’s what brings people and communities together. So I thought, surely, it would bring my friends closer to me. Boy, was I wrong. “Why does it smell so gross?” “It looks weird.” “Do you seriously like that?” From that day forward, I begged my mom to pack me a “normal” lunch. My parents tried to brush it off, saying that they were just never exposed to things like that. “They’re just jealous, Kiki.” I don’t want them to be jealous; I want them to be my friends.

I come from a big family, and growing up, our customs never felt “different”; they just felt like home. Until we moved. Suddenly, I realized that I would never truly look or be like any of the girls I was friends with. Sure, I could dress the same, eat the same, even talk the same as them, but I would never have their pale skin, blonde hair, or blue eyes. I kept this mentality even in 7th grade when we moved again: New school, new me. This time, the school was crawling with popular athletes, so I became one. I joined the school’s cheer team, hoping it would help me blend in, but I still didn’t quite fit. I was the only one with glasses, so I got contacts. Everyone had either blonde or highlighted hair, so I booked a hair appointment.

By the time I was halfway through my freshman year, my family decided to flee to Tennessee. But this move was different. There were too many groups to choose from, too many versions of myself that I could be. While my teacher was busy praising Shakespeare, I sat there asking myself, “Who do I want to be?”

“To be or not to be”-that really was the question.

I had spent my whole life trying to piece myself into everyone else’s puzzle but my own. I couldn’t even begin to describe my interests to someone because I didn’t know what they were. How can I start living for me?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet.” Change my name and I might as well be anyone else. Then it clicked: theatre.

The Jungle Book Jr.: Kalia Busick-Elephant. In 5th grade, I got cast in my first musical. Admittedly, I only auditioned because my friends did, but looking back, it was the most fun I had while being a follower. How ironic. The twisted truth of it was that acting gave me the thrill of becoming someone else without having to face their problems or confront my own. At first, I wondered if it was the right decision; however, as soon as I set foot in the theater, I knew I belonged. Belonging. That was something I never felt before. I marched into the theatre class with my fists clenched and my breath short. “We’ve been waiting for someone like you.” My shoulders dropped, my heartbeat steadied, and a smile crept onto my face. Not the fake smile that I wear so people would let me sit beside them, but a real grin. True happiness. Mr. Ragland sat me down and somehow managed to hear more about me than I even knew about myself. It could have been the people, the feeling of the spotlight, maybe even the costumes, but I think it was the experience as a whole. The acceptance. For once, I could be whoever I wanted to be without judgment.

As the curtain closed on my final play of junior year, I had an epiphany: I had never been so grateful for an experience in my life. “We are going to look back and miss this,” I looked at my best friend, knowing that this cast, this director, and the theatre as a whole changed my life. For the first time, I formed my own identity without borrowed scraps. Theatre didn’t just give me a voice, it helped me use it. These people showed me that offstage, I didn’t need to perform; I could be myself, and that was enough.

As I reflect on my past years, I realized that trying so hard to fit in everywhere made me feel like I belonged nowhere. By accepting myself, I was accepting the fact that I didn’t need to mold myself into a certain group. I brought diversity into rooms that had never had to think about having it. If I had embraced my differences sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have felt the loneliness and need to conform. Moving forward, I now know that perfection in pleasing others is impossible, but authenticity isn’t.

“Why can’t leaves stay alive all year long?” Collin’s favorite place to ask questions was at the dinner table.

         “Well,” I could see the wheels turning in my mother’s head, “for one, when it gets real cold out, the leaves can’t survive the extreme temperatures, so they die,” Collin began to fiddle with his compass for a moment, rather than asking another question. Then he quickly reached for another scoop of green beans, which resulted in his right sleeve drowning in the bowl of gravy that sat in front of him.

I hate compasses.

         Collin Hill was ten years old, and he always carried a compass. It was small, small enough for him to wear around his skinny, pale neck. He claimed that “if Christopher Coloumbus had a compass, then so must I,” – a childish dream, which drove him to his adventures.

         Collin was six when he was given his treasured compass. I remember seeing him put it around his neck for the first time and thinking that he would take it off within a day or two. Collin read geography books and studied atlases for fun. He would write down everything he observed in red or blue covered college ruled notebooks. At night, he would memorize different constellations, and then he would proceed to sleep under an army green tarp, which he had secured between his two favorite trees. They were Maple trees. All the while, his trusty compass stayed securely around his neck. The casing was metal, which made me believe that it would be cold against his chest, but he most often wore it outside of his shirt.

         Collin knew many people, but he didn’t hang out with very many. He thought that they thought that his hobbies were strange, but I think it’s just because he would dip his French fries in mayonnaise. Collin had a habit of drawing faces. He used his compass, which was a perfect circle, and traced an outline for the faces he drew. He never drew his faces in his college ruled notebooks though, he had a sketchbook for those. And he never drew the same face twice.

         As Collin’s older sister, I was able to observe, and suffer through, his many intriguing conspiracies. For as long as I could remember, Collin was the smartest in the house, but not because he had all the answers, but because he asked all the questions. We had lived in an old, red brick house off Poppy Meadow Rd. There were never any Poppies or meadows, in fact we had six acres of dense “wooded freedom”, as Collin called it, behind our house. And behind those six acres, there were thirty-five more acres of towering trees, patchy grassy areas, and little streams, which led to a large creek.

         On one particular Saturday, Collin had double knotted his worn out Merrel hiking boots. They were grey, with black laces, and they had the beginning of a tear on his right pinky toe, exposing his white Fruit of the Loom socks. He threw an extra water bottle into his backpack and then asked me to go with him on his afternoon adventure.

         “I can’t, I’ve got homework to do,” I responded, “and besides, Amy is coming over later,”

         “Whatever,” Collin paused and began to fidget with his compass, turning it over his scrawny fingers. He was contemplating his next words, “I’m going to the creek,”

         “I’ll have to go next time,” I shook my head. Collin sighed and then picked up his backpack off the floor and slung it over his shoulder. His compass, which was four years old at that point, was beginning to show signs of age. There was a dent over the E and a crusty substance had become quite comfortable around the edge of it.

         “Bye, Mom!” I heard Collin yell as the screen door slammed shut behind him.

         “Collin, there’s a storm coming. You better be back before dinner this time!” My mom responded to him. I’m not sure if he heard her. I watched him through the back window as headed toward the tree line. He would always stop before he entered the woods and take a second to kiss his compass. I never understood why he did this, but I never brought it up to him because I didn’t want him to know that I noticed it. But on that day, he didn’t do that. In fact, he didn’t pause at all. He simply walked straight into the woods.

         The storm came rolling into our town within the hour. The sky turned dark gray and the wind became harsh. Collin had been stuck out in storms before, but that storm was different. The leaves were ripped off his favorite Maple trees, and his army green tarp blew away. Collin never made it home that day. The police told us that he was swept away in a flash flood. Authorities argued about where he had been beside the creek, or if he even made it to the creek, before the flood came, but they never knew for sure. Officials blamed the storm, my mother blamed herself, but I blame that stupid compass.

         I live in the city now. No trees. No stars. No sense of direction.

She sat on her rickety, wooden bench,
Face to face with her piano.
Her bony, wrinkled fingers
Refuse to play a tune.
Breakfast sat on the kitchen table.
Steaming grits
Blanketed by hammy-down China
Would stay forever untouched.
The floral tablecloth
No more to be disturbed.
The footprints in the
Faded, blue carpet
Would always stay imprinted.
Hymnal books older
Then her great grandchildren
Snuggled around her feet.
A harp in the corner
And a doll
Whose expression never changed.
Loose photos lay on every corner
And every dusty shelf.
Her fine, white hair
Swirled neatly together on her head,
Secured by a singular pin.
A pair of marble hands
Sit alone as they pray.
A cross over the doorway
And a Bible on her nightstand.
All of her songs have been sung.



 

Today I checked the weather and it called for a light drizzle
I peered out the window to watch
As the sky shed gentle tears
Washing away the hope
Of a straight hair and sandals

I used to dance in the rain

Even though I can’t dance at all
Jumping around with my arms stretched to the sky
Never minding the twisted gaze of a stranger driving by
Performing barefoot pirouettes in puddles
While my clothes clung to my skin

I used to dance in the rain

Today I put on my rain boots, grabbed my umbrella, and ran to the car as fast as I could
I sidestepped mini ponds as I made my way into the office
My hair fell flat from the humidity and my clothes were damp all morning
I complained to my coworker about the weather all day
Which was weird

Because I used to dance in the rain

3rd Place Winner of the 2026 Novus Literary Arts Journal High School Creative Writing Contest

For the first time in a while, I felt something, not quite nervous but as if this moment mattered more. I wanted to win; it was what was expected of us; it was why we were there.

I arrived at the field around 8:00. It was a cool Sunday morning in July. The turf was damp from the early morning due. An unspoken tension filled the stadium, but on the outside my teammates and I appeared to have a light-hearted approach to the game. As we stretched and warmed up, we made small banter. Some of the guys with girlfriends filled each other in on the latest Love Island episode, while others talked about how sore they were from the days prior. Regardless, it was almost time to get serious.

The days leading up to the championship were less than eventful. We played well in order to get there, ruling two teams in the process.

However the games weren’t really being taken seriously by us, as there wasn’t any doubt as to what the outcome of the games would be.

It’s simple, we win.

This game however was going to be different. We were going up against our own program. The game had more meaning to it than just being some championship. It showed who the best coaches and players in the program were.

As I stretched I looked across the field and saw former teammates. Guys I knew were solid. But today that didn’t matter. All that mattered was beating the players standing on the other side of the field.

Ten minutes to game time coach Alfonso called us over, “Boys, I’m gonna be honest with you, I didn’t sleep last night. All I could think about was this game. Right here, right now. You’ve done it all summer, compete; it’s no different today. For the next 90 some minutes, leave it all on the field. That’s all I can ask.” He followed with, “Lineups posited. Lets get ready to hit.”

Top of the first.

I was hitting two hole, playing center. Their pitcher Logan, a kid I had played with before, was on the bump. He was an upper 80’s arm with a good breaking ball.

We go three up, three down with three groundouts to start the game. And now it was time to take the field. I ran out to center and yelled out to Jaxen, my left fielder, “Well we got ourselves a game today.” A tone of mockery in Jaxen’s voice was apparent when he replied with, “Ya, they’re better than I expected.” “Balls in” rings out from the infield and we take our positions.

On the mound we had a small crafty southpaw. Not being able to throw very hard, he lived off of his command and offspeed. This meant he relied heavily on his defense to have success. And he didn’t take long to put us to use. The first pitch . . .

Crack!

The ball flew up into the air. I opened with my eyes fixed on the ball. My body glided back as I tracked it. No feeling, no thoughts, just reaction.

There are many reasons to why I believe baseball is the greatest sport to exist, but that’s

probably number one. The more you think, the more you can mess up. The game allows, almost forces you to let your thoughts go and just play.

Just play.

No overthinking, no stress, no crying over spilled milk. Only controlling what you can control and then moving onto the next thing.

Pop! The ball hit my glove and we had one down.

The next few innings flew by. We scored first and they answered.

After five innings the game was tied at one to one. We were back up to the plate. Jaxen led off the inning with a triple. Mira, our shortstop, and the next batter, drew a walk. Two pitches later he was caught stealing second. They got one.

Stranding runners on base is one of the worst things you can do in baseball. Especially when you have a guy on with nobody out because you can bunt, squeeze, hit a back side ground ball. There’s so many options to get the runner in.

None of which we had done. Instead, Jaxen tagged up on a shallow fly ball to center and got hosed at the plate.

Just like that, three outs, and we were back in the field. That’s how quick the game can shift. To go from one of the best possible starts to an inning, to the worst possible outcome.

And why?

It wasn’t because they outplayed us in the inning, or because their arm on the mound was too dominant. We outplayed ourselves. We got too greedy and the game humbled us.

After some more missed opportunities, our sleep deprived coach addressed the dugout just before the start of the ninth inning, “Boys, I apologize. The anticipation of this game has

gotten to me and I have cost us I don’t even know how many runs. But the game will still go on, and it’s going to be up to y’all to finish it. We got one inning left, let’s go win a ball game.”

The ninth inning started, and our dugout was filled with chatter, as we were hitting once again.

“Come on now four.”

“Here you go kiiiiid.”

“Hum babe.”

The pitch . . . Crack! The balls laced towards short and caught. Great swing, still out.

The next guy up was Dawson, our first baseman. He watched a few, and then he got his pitch. The ball sailed toward the right field wall. Caught short at the track. Two great swings and nothing to show for it.

Our third hitter entered the box. First pitch, “Strike one.” Second pitch, ”Strike two.” Third pitch swinging, and the ball, weakly struck, floated just over the infield, and dropped into the right-center gap. We had a chance. I stepped into the box. The first pitch was a passed ball. It was the top of the ninth, tied ball game, and we had a runner on second with two outs. It was now or never. I gripped the bat loosely, no thinking, no feeling, just like the fly ball from before, just reaction.

The pitch came in. He hung a breaking ball middle, middle, and I drove it into left. My teammate on second read it down and flew around third scoring easily.

Our next hitter grounded out and our time for scoring had ended, but we had the lead, 2-1

All we had to do now was hold them. Three outs and we win. That’s it, three outs and we were champions. It all came down to this, every pitch, every hit, every out. The moment of that

inning is why we play the game. Will you rise to the occasion or crumble to the pressure? Will you be able to overcome the challenges or fall back into the security of excuses? Only one will take you to success, to your goals, to a champion.

Bottom of the ninth . . .