Strike Four A Baseball Novel

Painting a Picture for Readers

For a high school English assignment we had to write something that incorporated multiple senses, and I’ve enjoyed doing that ever since. For that assignment, pegged to the novel The Scarlet Letter, I wrote about the visceral feelings of standing on a gallows, the hangman’s noose slipping around your neck. But here’s another, more pleasant, subject, from my other favorite sport, hockey: The goaltender peered through his mask at the opposing player twitching, awaiting the whistle to skate the puck in one-on-one. The fans’ yelling became a low-frequency hum in his ears, as he focused on his opponent. He felt a lone bead of sweat roll down the bridge of his nose, catching on his upper lip, but refused to be distracted. His pads, gloves, and other protective gear weighed around 20 pounds empirically; at this moment they may as well have been made of lace, for all the impact they had on his body. He shuffled his feet, tight in his skates, in anticipation and, he hoped, intimidation, signaling his readiness to explode left or right, lunge, or split as the case may be. A fleeting smell of popcorn hit him from the nearby stands, joining in with the miasma of men’s sweat lingering over his goal crease. The whistle. Bring it on…