Authors Note: This is a story from my creative writing class. We had to write down a character and a scene/action on separate pieces of paper. We then were forced to choose at random one scene/action and one character that our classmates had thought of and write a fictional story about it. I got fat man wearing a fanny pack for the character and jumping on a trampoline for the scene/action. This is the story I created:
He was an NBA prospect. A basketball god draped in North Carolina baby blue who had taken human form. He kissed babies, shook politician’s hands, and was fought over by slimy agents. Normally racist old-south whites only called him boy to say things like: “good game boy” or “your one fine player boy”. He was the next Magic, the next Jordan, the next great player who people would use to describe future phenoms. He was so close that he could taste the sulfur of the pre-game pyrotechnics. Unfortunately his knee had other plans.
A man does not die once his dreams are dead; in a physical sense at least. Fifteen years have passed since his injury. He is a hundred pounds heavier and a thousand times less wide-eyed and optimistic. His bullshit diploma in Broadcast Communications allotted him little in the way of job skills. He had intended on playing basketball with little preparation for much else. If it weren’t for his university offering him an entry level administrative position he likely would have been forced to hit the streets and hustle or become a used car salesman; neither option was particularly appealing. His girlfriend, who’s now his wife, was pregnant with twins. Money was something he needed. Kids are fucking expensive.
Now this former world class athlete is a suburbs dwelling family man with a mortgage, prescriptions to Zoloft and Lipitor, a wife who can’t stand him, and kids who make him feel guilty. His only comfort is the food he could never eat when he was an athlete: burgers, fried chicken, pizza, ice-cream, all that good stuff. His habit has turned him into a husky heavy breather who can barely get into his car, let alone catch and flush an alley-oop pass. His pants have grown so tight, his butt so big, that sweatpants have become his new denim. The only problem is sweatpants never have pockets. The ones that do have pockets have tiny pockets. The only sense he could make of this was the majority of sweatpants owners are women (who have purses) and creepy old guys (who need some place to keep their Werther’s hard candies and their sex offender identification cards). This lack of pants-based storage presented a problem for him, as he couldn’t leave his wallet, cell phone, and cigarettes lying around his house.