The Night Barry Took the Field

The stadium lights were dark when Barry took the field. From the stands we all could sense something moving down there in the gloom. We guessed it was a marching band, or maybe dancers or a float. It had better be something good, we mused, we'd been promised a halftime show.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer crooned. "Boys and girls and popcorn vendors too. You should probably bolt your minds to the thick part of your skull. And you're gonna wanna torque it tight and fill the seams with glue."

"Well," someone whispered from a seat near the top of the stadium. "This could be something different."

"You better bet your freaking souls this is something different!" The announcer roared as if he'd heard the man. The speakers trembled on their posts as if Lucifer himself was behind that microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, beer vendors and ticket takers in curls..."

The announcer let out the rest of the breath with a rumbling moan that even the parking attendants felt as vibration in their bones. Then he filled his lungs again with such a ragged gasp, that the flags that rimmed the stadium were torn from their masts.

"It's a hurricane walking with a butterfly! It's a tidal forces belly rind!"

Most of us couldn't even hear right by now--half of us were crying.

"It's the next best thing to savage cheese. It's a cataclysm of the mind!"

It was now or never for that unseen announcer. Too much more of this rampage of buildup and he'd find himself overlooking a stadium of corpses. He seemed to know it was time.

"I..." The stadium trembled to its foundation.
"Give..." The blimp crashed into a cliff.
"You..." Pigeons dropped dead a mile away.
"BARRY!!!" Eardrums ruptured in shocking sprays of yellow fluid.

"Yes, Barry!" The announcer reiterated.
"I give you Barry!!!"

Someone lit a fuse and then a thousand pounds of fireworks holocausted into the sky.

When we could see again, those of us that still could see, we all beheld Barry. He stood alone at center field.

There he was.

Barry.

He didn't seem to be doing much.

"That's right!" The announcer shrieked. "It's Barry!!!"

Barry gave us all a little wave.

"Barry's here!!!"

In the stab of an angled spotlight, Barry's shadow stretched for yards. Barry slowly raised his arms and the dark giant at his feet mimicked the motion.

"That's right folks, Barry!!!" The announcer howled, sounding very near an aneurysm.
"I present Barry, and his shadow puppets of unicorns fucking!!!"

And then I'll be eternally damned if Barry didn't proceed to make shadow puppets on the shimmering grass that looked exactly like two unicorns fucking.

And I don't know if it was the blood in my ears--or the corneal damage to my eyes--or the way my organs kept on sloshing against my twisted spine--or the spider fangs of agony that pierced my shuddering brain... but with reckless mercy as my witness, it was the most beautiful thing on God's dark earth that I had ever seen.

And now I don't even know how the game ended, and I don't even know where I am. I only know I'd cut chunks from myself to watch Barry's shadow puppets of unicorns… watch them fucking again.

The End






(Note to self: Yikes. Just yikes.

Don't ever, ever let anybody read this.)