Creative Writing Prompt June 18, 2014: World Cup Madness

World Cup Madness

You’re a soccer player on your national team at a World Cup soccer game. It’s an elimination game. The game has been intense and is tied 0-0. It comes down to the final play and the ball is yours. Do you make it? Miss and send to a shootout? Write this scene, but here’s the catch: There’s something on your mind that’s distracting you and must be incorporated into your thought process while trying to score the goal.

              “Haya! Hii ni risasi yetu ya mwisho!” the team captain called. We are nil nil against Germany and time has fled us the whole game. We have five minutes additional time and we have come into the last minute of the game. This is the World Cup, and we are fighting to advance to the championship or to go home.

                Frank dribbles the ball past a defender and passes it to Harold who takes it down to enemy territory. The Germans are caught off guard as I get open. When the ball comes to me, there is no one. It is just me, and the goalie. As he stands his ground and I take my shot, my mind is fleeting back home. How I may become a national hero at this very moment, but when all is said and done, I have no one to share this victory with.

                My foot catches the brim of the ball and what passes through my mind is my empty mansion back home. The silent walls, the cobwebs sweeping around the corners, and me, sitting in the cusp of my recliner, drinking my fifteenth Guinness and watching highlights of my competitors on the local news station. No matter what I do, hero or not, it won’t make up that simple fact…

                “GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!”