Dodgeball

I remember playing dodgeball when I was in elementary school.

The gym seemed huge and the bright overhead lights flooded the light wood, polished floor that squeaked when I pressed the toe of my shoe on it and slid it across. There were lines on the floor and I didn't know why.

I remember how often I was frustrated by my peers. Sometimes they'd say things that were nonsense, or they wouldn't listen to the teacher, or even each other. Looking back on it, I realize now that organizing a group of six year olds into cooperating, must be like herding cats.

We fluttered around the gym, ready to play the game that was just described to us at length.

Throw the ball to the other side of the line and try to hit someone, then they're out of the game. But if they catch it, you're out. As we grew up, I think it got more complicated…something about freezing people…but those rules were yet to come. This was dodgeball, straight up. It was all our little brains could process at once.

I remember holding the red ball in my hands. It felt big, but was probably small. My fingers spread across the textured surface. I ran a nail over it and it made a funny sound. And when it hit the floor, it made such a distinctive noise. It was like a metallic, vibrating, wheeze of a cough with a slap mixed in.

And when the whistle blew, it was chaos. Balls were being launched left and right; an assortment of primary colors dotted the sky. And it was your job to focus on not getting hit, to remember to throw the ball, to thinking of maybe catching one, or instead, picking one up that went astray on the ground.

It was a little room of chaos, filled with little voices. It was fun but…something clicked for me about it all. I don't know if it was that first day, or later…but sometime…playing dodgeball when I was really young…I realized how much the game mirrored life.

I doubt that at the time I could have communicated this thought process so coherently…but I thought it. I thought how similar dodgeball was to life.

That there are people out there…dying from disease, from accidents, from whatever. And as long as you were still in the game, you got to watch it, watch them go out, witness the chaos. And you were left standing there, wondering…not wondering but knowing…that you're next, that getting hit is inevitable. That the probability of you getting hit is absurdly high and all you can do is stay in the game for as long as you can.

Something about that realization kind of freaked me out at that young age.

I was little. In a big gym. Full of things I couldn't control. I thought the game was fun…still do…but I don't like how it makes me think of life. How little I am. How much chaos there is. How you do everything you possibly can with yourself, until there is no course of action left that involves you.

And maybe the most jarring part of it all, is that you never see the ball coming that hits you. You can't predict it, you can't stop it, and you don't want to be taken out of the game.