know?”
“Want team do you represent? Or are you a free-lance agent looking for raw talent to sell to the highest bidder?”
His eyes went wide. It was clear he hadn’t expected that line of questioning. “I don’t represent any team at all.”
“Then why did you provide the Panthers with a place to play? What, exactly, are you after?”
When he answered he chose his words carefully. “I suppose you could call me a facilitator. My job is to make sure something… important… is done.”
In total annoyance, I turned away but his hand shot out, stopping me, but gently. I could leave if I wanted. I stayed. “Do you truly want to know? Do you Beth?”
“Of course I do.” I stepped impatiently from one foot to another.
He eyed me carefully as if wondering what Sig saw in such an insignificant woman. “Sig loves you, Beth. Maybe that’s good. It might just make it easier because people do a lot for those they love.” His expression grew sad. Not tragic, but his face was suffused with an odd kind of melancholy that it seemed to fall into with the ease of long practice.
“Make what easier?” I stamped my foot. I was getting tired of being kept in the dark.
His gaze went to that huge calendar on the wall. I’d noticed him looking at it often. “It’s 2012.”
“So?”
“It’s winter.”
“I’ve noticed.” My response was sarcastic. I was growing tired of his evasion.
“The stars will line up during the equinox. All of them, all the way to the center of the galaxy.”
“I know. I’ve read all that wacko 2012 stuff.”
“It’s not crazy.” The crazy stuff Sig mentioned. Yaxun was a 2012 wacko. Certifiable.
“Yeah. Right. And we’re all going to die.”
“Hopefully not. Not if the Panthers are as good as I think they are. Not if they win.”
I debated whether to encourage his fantasy, knowing the best course of action was to pretend I hadn’t heard. Because didn’t encouraging a crazy person just make things worse? But I have a problem in that regard. I don’t know how to shut up when the subject is something I care about. Never did know how. Didn’t know how now. “Okay, tell me about it.
He looked me up and down, knowing what I was thinking but telling me anyway. “On the 2012 solstice, the eye of the universe will open.”
That’s nice.”
“When it does, the key that holds all the different universes apart will fall out of its rightful place.”
“Darn.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or run for safety.
“When the key falls, the door that keeps other universes separate will open and other… beings… will try to enter our universe. Our world.” I managed to hold back my laughter while hoping Yaxun’s fantasies were harmless. “They will send scouts first. There aren’t a lot of scouts. That’s our only hope, that we can shut the door and lock it before the scouts call the rest of them to our world. Because if the scouts succeed in keeping the door open long enough, they will make our universe their own. They will destroy everything. Everything.”
“Can’t let that happen.” I’d heard enough, boredom was setting in.
“So the Panthers must win the game they will play when the eye opens.”
“Excuse me?” I wasn’t bored any more. I didn’t believe him, of course, but his delusions involved the Panthers and that included Sig. So I decided that I wanted to know more. As much as possible.
I folded my arms and listened. “The key doesn’t look like keys you are used to. It doesn’t work in the usual manner.”
“How does it work?” One question at a time. Take it slow and easy until I could figure out how to get Sig away from this maniac.
“It’s round. Spherical. To fit into a round keyhole.”
My breath went out in a whoosh as I knew was he was going to say next. Because his fantasy had a kind of logic. “You mean round like a basketball hoop.”
He nodded. “Precisely. So now you know.”
“I know that you think that the Panthers can put the key back in the keyhole because they are good at putting round things through holes.”
“The others… I think of them as demons because that’s what they are like… will try to prevent anyone from even getting near the hoop. The keyhole. But the Panthers must succeed. They must put the ball through the hoop.”
I wanted to walk away. Instead, I asked, “Why the Panthers? Why not a better team? A pro team?”
“I don’t know why the Panthers any more than you do, I only know they have been chosen to do this.”
“Chosen? You’re kidding. By whom?” He shrugged. Clearly he didn’t know. “How do you know all this?”
He answered slowly. “Think about it, Beth. Why do you suppose this mediocre team can suddenly beat any professional team on the planet when a few weeks ago they couldn’t beat anyone?”
I didn’t like his question because there was no answer and that fact made me uneasy. But I decided to continue, I’d let this conversation go on too long to do otherwise. “What about you? How are you involved?”
“I was captain of the last team. Long, long ago. We won, we put the key in the door to the universe.” “He said it proudly, but there was sadness underlying the pride.
“How long ago?”
“Eons. Generations.”
“You’re still here.”
“Someone had to remain. To be here when the eye opened again. I was the captain of that team, it was my responsibility. So it was arranged.”
“By whom? How?” I snorted, no longer trying to pretend I believed a tale that had passed any pretence to reality.
He ignored my disbelief. I suppose he was used to it, had gotten the same response from the Panthers when he told them his unlikely tale. “I don’t know the how of it. I only know that after the game a white light appeared. I knew it was for me, I knew what I had to do, as Sig knows what he’ll have to do if the Panther’s win. So the next time the eye opens, he can find the next team. When I saw the white light, I said goodbye to my wife and children and walked into it.”
“Just like that?” He actually believed he’d lived almost forever and walked into a bright light.
“Just like that.”
I now knew what I needed to know. Perhaps Yaxun, too, was a vet and this was his way of dealing with whatever had happened and the Panthers went along with it because they’d been there, they knew what veterans had to deal with, they understood.
The next day, during a quiet moment after work, I did research into the 2012 predictions. That the world would end. That demons would take over the earth. That life as we knew it would be over. All sorts of things. When I shut of the computer, instead of being able to put Yaxun’s madness aside, I found it impossible to laugh at his story even though it could not possibly be true.
I tried to talk to Sig about it. “It’s nice of you guys to humor him.”
Sig ruffled one hand through my hair in a way that meant to distract me. “He got us the gym.”
“That’s all it is to you, then? A place to play in the winter?” I said what I’d been unable to put from my mind. “You don’t think there’s anything to his fantasy, do you?”
“Of course not. The end of the world? That’s stupid.” His words said he didn’t believe a word of Yaxun’s fantasy, but his voice said otherwise.
“What do you think, Sig? Do you think there’s any chance the world will end at the equinox?”
His pulled his hand free of my hair. Licked his lips. “No, of course I don’t believe him. But…”
“But?”
“I know the world won’t end on the equinox. But, just for the sake of conversation, say it is true. Say the Panthers do save the world from being invaded by demons from some other universe. If it did happen that way, then I’d want to give our world a chance the next time it happens. So I
’d do what Yaxun said he did. I’d go into that white light so the next time the eye of the universe opens, I’d be around to find and train some future team to save the world.”
His cheeks were suffused with pink. “I know how it sounds, and I don’t for one second believe any of this stuff. But I do believe in doing what I have to. Like in the Middle East. You do what has to be done. So if it’s true … which it isn’t … I’ll go.” Then he pulled me to him and wrapped those huge hands around my waist in a way he knows drives me crazy.
It worked. I love Sig, love the feel of his long, strong body, the way he smells like the outdoors when he hasn’t been outside for days, love the husky timbre in his voice when he wants to have sex. The timbre that was in his voice at that moment. The timbre I can’t resist. So I put aside my questions and melted into him.
Only later, staring at the dark ceiling, my body tight against his in order to draw sustenance from whatever it is about him that’s unique to him and no one else, only then did I think back over our conversation and try to make sense of it.
We never spoke of the equinox again but we both watched the calendar and silently counted the days to the equinox. When it arrived, also in silence we walked the few blocks to the warehouse that was now a basketball court.
The lights dimmed, then brightened, and I thought I’d lose my dinner because it was lit by a light without a source. Which meant it was true, all of it, the whole story, and that the game that would decide the fate of the world … our fate … Sig’s fate and mine … was about to begin.
The beings arrived. Darkness accompanied