Page 55 of Offside

“Šíma.” Novotný, from the couches, wounded in advance. “The bronze list. Tell me I’m in the eleven.”

“I don’t pick the eleven.”

“You influence the eleven.”

“I influence the seating on the bus. The eleven picks itself, and you headed four corners in a semifinal. Do the math.”

“He can’t,” Polášek says. “He attached his math to the feedback form.”

“The appendix was LOAD-BEARING.”

Horak hovers at the edge of it with a sleeve in his fist. “Is it strange,” he says, “wanting to play a match nobody dreams about?”

“Kid.” I point the water bottle at him. “Saturday there’s a stadium, a medal, and a horn. Somebody gets to stand on a podium at a World Cup. Nobody dreams about bronze because nobody’s imagination is brave enough. Go to bed.”

He goes, taller.

“Do me,” Novotný says. “For morale.”

“You’re immortal. It’s in the feedback form.”

“It IS in the feedback form,” he tells Polášek, vindicated forever.

The room settles. Bits with blood all through them, transmitted live, and nobody checks, because nobody has ever once checked.

Damián comes in at eleven with containers stacked to his chin.

“From Mami. For the floor. There’s a system, the labels are color-coded, don’t fight it.” He looks at me over the tower. “You look like the semifinal.”

“Long tournament.”

“Mm.” He heads for the lift, then stops. “She made you the svícková again. Your name’s on it. Marker. Third shelf, and don’t make her ask twice.”

“Noted.”

“It’s never just noted with that woman. Eat it.”

My name on a container, in a mother’s handwriting, two days after I decided to protect everyone from myself. The tower goesup in the lift and I sit in the lobby a while longer, holding the shift together.

Upstairs, the chat needs its captain of morale.

Šíma

evening item. the federation confirms bronze medals are real metal. I checked. bite them at your own risk, Novotný

Novotný

I was going to bite it

Šíma

we know. we all know. bite gently. it’s coming home either way

Horak

is there a squad list yet

Šíma