Cricket

It's a funny game. As the days roll on the nature of it seems to change, the ground gets browner. Dust starts to kick up from his opponents as they hurl themselves across the pitch. It feels to him as if there are more people around. Maybe there are more, at the very least they're less spread out. No, he thinks, there are more than there was a few days ago. There's certainly fewer from his team. They've fallen slowly, but they've fallen, it's just him and one other now.

It's hot and the sun burns through his whites, he can feel it on his skin. His sweat has turned to a sticky dry salt feeling. Granules stick to his head, and his hands, and well, everywhere. 

It's the fifth and last day. He feels like a win is within reach. There's definitely more of them today, surely, but he feels like the end is close. Things happen at a slow inevitable pace. He can taste victory. No, maybe that's just salt. He swings wildly at times, forgetting the value of concentration. But their concentration is dimming as well, so he gets away with it for now. Slowly, inevitably, he inches closer. Not to victory, but not to defeat either. He inches closer to that hollow feeling of not having won, that is still so much more preferable to the only alternative now. All he can do now is avoid the bitter, the sweet is out of reach.