Page 69 of Offside

“The board misses things.”

“The board is an international aviation system, Tomáš.”

“The board,” I say, “is a concept.”

He puts the phone down. That’s how I know I got him. Ten years of material and the scoreboard still matters.

“Item two,” he says. “He packs snacks for a nine-hour flight like the airline has never heard of food.”

“The airline food is a rumor with a tray.”

“Item three.” He picks the phone back up, scrolling nothing. “He falls asleep before the safety demonstration and wakes up angry that he missed the snacks.”

“And item four?”

“There’s no item four.” A pause, timed, broadcast-grade. “I stopped writing the list. I decided I’d rather just have the seat next to it for the rest of my life.”

There it is. In an airport, at gate B7, in the flattest voice in the federation. Nobody around us even looks up. The most explicit thing said in public all summer, and it’s invisible, because it was engineered to be. He goes back to his phone. My chest does something I don’t file.

“You get the aisle,” I say. “I get the armrest.”

“You get the armrest,” he agrees. “It’s in the terms.”

They call the flight. We board like professionals.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, with him asleep in 14D with his mouth open, undocumented, unphotographed, mine, I do the summer’s final ledger. Because I’m still me, and ledgers are how I love things.

Lost a semifinal. Won a bronze. Lost a partnership, eleven boxes to Atlanta, and gained a supply line. Lost the fiction, two days in a beige corridor I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Kept the thing that counts. Kept it, said it, signed it. 14D, present tense, snoring gently at thirty-eight thousand feet.

The summer files itself. I close the ledger.

Home next.

?

BRNO'S BEST #4

Novotný

roll call. who is home

Polášek

home. the twins met me at the door wearing the medal. both of them. it is one medal

Novotný

how

Polášek

they take turns every ten minutes. there is a schedule. my wife made the schedule. I have been home two hours and I have already cried at a laminated document

Horak

home. my mother framed the crying picture. it is in the HALLWAY. guests will see it

Šíma