1812 gorilla overture in A minor (short story)

[Goat]

why a minor? cuz it's pretty.
------------------------------------


With gorillas to the left and gorillas to the right, nervousness hung over our soon-to-be battlefield like mist after a light spring rain. The place and the time were set and there was no turning back. I laced up my boots like there was no tomorrow; it certainly felt that way. Birds were chirping, kids were playing, and, to my surprise, an audience was already growing to witness a victor.
Taking up the position that was assigned to me, I rehearsed my role again and again in my mind. In practice we’d gone over this hundreds of times. It felt unsettling that after so many drills and rehearsals, after all the scrapes, bruises, and sore muscles, the moment could actually be here. I paced uneasily as our opponents, our ‘enemy’, stood measuring us up.
I remember now how Ryan Peters came over and patted me on the back muttering how little time we had to prepare for this. Looking back I can laugh at what can only now be called ego; how the need to perform was so strong as to blind my vision completely. It’s funny how it didn’t matter then. I was eager and inexperienced, too caught up and ensnared in the emotion running through the field. We were about to be run over. We were about to be bulldozed.
We stood like characters from a movie right before the climax. We stood tall; we stood proud waiting for the inevitable. No one could have known how much we were waiting for that moment, the hours of grueling practice, the dastardly drills, the ‘run-‘till-you-drop’ madness that had run through our coaches mind, preparing us for this event. In the next hour and some odd loose minutes, time would tell if it was worth the effort.
There was a whistle, followed by a sudden rush of bodies converging. It happened so slowly, as if someone were reeling through a roll of film by hand, frame by agonizing frame.. I could see the sweat beading individually down their faces, reflected off the dull glint of not quite white teeth with each step they came at us. It didn’t last long. Features became indistinguishable in the last ten steps it took them to reach us, unprepared, as life picked up a step and came at us head on. All we could do was endure.




Epilogue
--------
No one could have predicted how well we did given the circumstances. Little did anyone know, eighty-five percent of our team had never played a game of rugby until that day. You probably would have laughed during the kickoff, how we ignorantly kicked the ball into the center of their forward pack, and how they scored tri after tri seemingly without effort; How we fumbled the ball time and time again on the most basic of plays and passes. You would have laughed, as the other team had, as the cartilage crunched in my nose creating stars and blinding light in my eyes, trying to focus on a ridiculously final score. It was like watching Canada play New Zealand. You would have laughed.
I know I did.