A Body Exists Outside of Time

Max Paradise

When the final buzzer sounds and the game subsides I will settle and wait courtside until my teammates and the broadcasters and journalists exit the locker room so that I might adjust the steam room to my preference and consume a single gallon of tepid water in silence. Only then can I shower before drying and dressing and rejoining my teammates for transportation to the airport. I have dreams of sleeping past the city traffic. For now there are still 4.3 seconds remaining. A pause in action made for gulping breaths. The sounds and whistles and shriek of sneakers are still, meditative waters. All of us on the court. Each one of us breathing.
          Muscles whispers the defensive set over and over as he leans down and runs his fingers along the wooden floor while Dimsey tracks movement in the stands behind the basket. We trail by a single point. The referee hands the ball to the inbounder and Dimsey defends as I shadow my opposite step-for-step. When he receives the pass I slap his wet wrist and a whistle blows. We move languorous and slow to the opposite end of the court for free throws, the sounds of crowd and sneakers and announcer resonant and beautiful. My opposite dribbles then shoots into the pregnant silence, his first free throw hitting the back of the rim and rolling off.
          Three rows behind our bench, four women wear official League reproductions of my jersey, upside-down triangles cut from neck to navel. I do not know their names. Dimsey and Muscles made their acquaintance at a local discotheque the evening prior and invited them back to our hotel. I imagine all four celebrated their youth and bodies without care or obligation. I slept alone in my hotel room, the air conditioning tuned to the mid 60s.
          I met one of the women in the hotel lobby this morning where she introduced herself to me and rested her hands on my arm when she spoke. Her voice was soft and sad and incredibly high, the voice of a girl younger than her body. I have learned to practice solitude on long road trips in the pursuit of excellence. She wished me luck and even remembering now I am choked with gratitude.
          The second free throw falls through the net with a hiss and our coach motions for a timeout. We gather in a loose semi-circle, blotting him in shadow. He is by all accounts an excellent coach. His head is bald while his nose is long and sharp and brooks very little argument. The broadcasters and journalists adore the coach for his wit and fussiness and honesty during interviews. I find him agreeable enough but pay no attention as he hovers over his whiteboard. I am already familiar with the play being diagrammed. I have been known to dream it.
          The horn sounds again as we shuffle onto the court to meet our opposites in the predetermined spaces. I am on the baseline, parallel to the basket, hands resting on knees. I close my eyes. I imagine.
          Two narratives, often the same with minute variations, always imagined consecutively. In the first I am standing over a sink in a familiar but unnamed hotel room. Behind me a king-sized bed and you, your eyes open as you lay atop the sheets. A window to the right and outside it is springtime. You kneel in the middle of the bed, legs tucked beneath you. I can map the curvature of your spine when you lift your arms overhead and stretch. The light reflects off your shoulders as small squares of white dot down your back. When you turn your head to see what I am doing the sun shines directly through the window and for a brief second you are a raw charcoal drawing on a white page. The second passes and you smile and say my name then something else, something I cannot quite hear. I exit the bathroom and move close and ask you to repeat yourself. Your hair always the color of clean sand. You meet me at the edge of the bed and do not repeat yourself.
          The official hands Muscles the ball then begins a silent countdown, emphasizing each second with a karate chop. I feint towards the basket then cut away and float towards the three-point line in preparation for the coming pass.
          The second narrative: I am just today five years old. My mother has taken off work to mark the occasion. She bakes a cake, beating lemon juice into powdered sugar for icing. I am a shy and solitary and lonely child. My mother is then and still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. In six years she will barely come up to my stomach. Her hair light brown, the highlights yellow. She pulls the cake out of the oven and cuts a slice with a single candle hissing in the frosting. She says: make a wish. I say: ok. She says: close your eyes. I look up at her. She says: what do you wish for? I say: I don’t know. I don’t know what to wish for. She says: think about something you want. I say: I don’t know. I say: what should I wish for? She says: up to you. She says: make one then. I close my eyes.
          I blow out the candle.
          In the eternity before the pass arrives I square my shoulders to the basket and bend my knees. When the frame clicks into place I catch the ball and leap in a single motion before extending and shooting. The ball spins into the glaring arena sky, a perfect parabola. No one can breathe. There are screams and grunts and a sounding buzzer as the cameras flash. I land on my feet and skip backwards, eyes forever open, waiting to see what will happen.

Max Paradise resides in Northern Virginia with his wife just outside the Beltway. His work has been previously published in The Disappointed Housewife, Full Bleed, Carte Blanche, and Maudlin House, and he has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2025. He avoids social media for the time being and is currently working on a novel.

Next Up: The Ecosystem by Julianne Peterman