The Price of Fame

By Tim Law

POP goes my knee as my boot connects with the ball. That pigskin goes sailing, the longest kick I’ve ever attempted. A split second later the linebacker crunches into me and we both hit the turf. I’m certain if I wasn’t wearing my armour I’d have two or three snapped ribs, even with the protective gear it’s hard to breathe with a man mountain making sure you stay down. Coach, the crowd, the whole world, everyone watches that ball. Everyone watches it, except me. Alarm bells go off in my brain as my knee pulses, agony; pure, horrific agony. I can feel something is wrong. No knee is supposed to feel that way.

There is that scene in the movie Any Given Sunday, where they think the guy has broken his neck and he waves to the crowd to show he’s ok, except he’s not. That was me after the ball narrowly sailed through the posts. It was the longest field goal in history they reckon. We won! The championship was ours. An impossible kick, that somehow resulted in a miraculous victory. I became a hero, the center of attention, and priority number one. Coach came running, first to celebrate, then faster when he realised I couldn’t get up. They stretchered me off, my teammates giving me high fives, thinking it was a precaution. They knew it was more than that when they received their rings and I got handed mine at the hospital.

I got told by the doc pretty quickly that I’d never leap again, never catch, never throw, never play. I didn’t care about that anymore, but deep down it hurt when they told me I’d be a fool to try and kick again. That feeling the game’s outcome, if we won or lost, was on my shoulders. That was the rush that got me through collage, damn it, that was all that was getting me through life. Now it was robbed from me forever.

So, I found solace in the bottle, sometimes pills, sometimes whisky, more often than not it was the two together. I forgot then, the pain, the agony, the loss. Money doesn’t buy you happiness, and fame sure ain’t what I thought it would be, not my hopes and dreams, more like all my nightmares wrapped up into a neat little package. One with a pretty bow, one I would have never opened had I known what lay inside. I’m sure you knew all that though, didn’t you? You knew I’d kick that ball. Hell, you probably put it there yourself.

You asked for this, you told me you would pay any price.

The voice echoes in my mind and I shiver. My heart rate monitor beeps erratically. Knee throbs so bad that it feels like it’s gonna explode. Nobody comes running though, not any more. They all stand around in that nurse’s station shaking their heads.

“Don’t worry about old hero,” they tell the newbies. “He’s just shouting at the shadows again.”

Timothy Law is a writer of fantasy, horror, detective and general fiction from a little town in Southern Australia called Murray Bridge. Currently working at the Murray Bridge Library he has dreamed since high school of becoming a full-time author. His stories can be found at http://somecallmetimmy.blogspot.com.au/ and https://academyoftheheartandmind.com/ other online platforms.