Ten.
Apollo runs as fast as he can with the ball, so fast that every atom of his body feels as if it is igniting. He looks for an open teammate, for he is no ball hog, our Apollo, but there are no teammates to be found between himself and the hoop. So he runs alone. He is lightning. There are green jersey players in his way, but he spins and jukes around them before they can react, as if they are sloths suspended in aspic. Do his feet even touch the floor? Is it the shoes?
He’s on fire.
Three.
He leaps high into the air and dunks the ball so hard that the backboard shatters into a thousand glittering shards of victory. The buzzer goes off just as he hits the ground. The final score is 100-99, red jerseys. Apollo Triumphant is leaped upon by his teammates. Hugs and pats on the back are distributed freely and with great relish. The crowd erupts into wild celebration. Apollo, Apollo, they chant.
Patrick, the captain of the opposing team, approaches Apollo as confetti falls from above. There is a sour look on the man’s face, an expression of constipated rage at its most pure. He balls his fingers into a fist and raises it level with Apollo’s midsection. It rears back and trembles as an arrow notched in a bow, ready to be fired.
“Good job, bro,” he says.
“You too,” says Apollo.
They bump fists. It is so dope.
A small child limps onto the basketball court. He smiles so hard that it must be painful for his face. Apollo kneels and gives him a high-five, then a low-five, then a deep hug.
“You did it, Apollo,” says the child.
“No. We did it,” says Apollo. “They’ll never be able to demolish the youth center now.”
“My new mommy and daddy said they could never have adopted me without your help.”
Apollo puts a finger to his own lips. “Shhhhh.”
“I love you, Apollo,” says the child, its face wet with tears. “You’re the best man alive.”
Apollo drives home with his trophy and game ball in the back seat of his sports car, a candy-apple convertible that gleams like justice. He blasts Rick Ross a positive, socially conscious rap song about working hard and pulling up one’s pants on his stereo. The road is his tonight. There are no other cars to be seen, no other people for miles. For all his successes as balla par excellence, Apollo still appreciates the beauty and quiet of the country.
Suddenly a sonorous roar pours out from the edge of the sky, so powerful that it shakes the car. Before Apollo can react, a yellow-silver-blue ball of fire shoots across the sky and explodes on the horizon, for a moment blotting out the darkness with pure white light before retreating into smoke and darkness. Apollo jams his foot on the pedal proceeds in the direction of the mysterious explosion while obeying all traffic laws and keeping his vehicle within the legal speed limits.
“Holy shit Golly,” he says.
Apollo finds a field strewn with flaming debris, shattered crystals, and shards of brightly colored metals. He hops out of his car to take a closer look. Based on his astro-engineering courses, which he gets top marks in, he surmises that these materials could only have come from some kind of spaceship. He is fascinated, to say the least.
He hears movement from under a sheet of opaque glass. He pushes it away and sees that there is a woman lying prone underneath. At least, Apollo thinks she is a woman. She is shaped like a woman, but her skin is blue, and she has gills, and she has a second mouth on her forehead. Woman or not, she is beautiful, with delicate, alien features and C-cup breasts.
“Oh my God,” says Apollo. He kneels down next to the alien woman and cradles her in his arms. “Are you okay?”
She sputters, “…Listen… ship… crashed… There isn’t much… time… You must stop… Lord Tklox… He is coming to… answer the… Omega Question… He will stop at nothing… please… stop him… Save… civilization… Leave me…”
Apollo notices a growing purple stain on the woman’s diaphanous yellow robes. Based on his theoretical xenobiology class, he hypothesizes that this is blood. He shakes his head at her, unwilling to accept the false choice she has presented him with. “I’ll do whatever I can to stop him, but first I have to help you.”
She reaches up to gently stroke his hand with her three-fingered hand. “…So kind… I… chose well…”
With his incredible basketballer’s strength, it is nothing for Apollo to lift the woman. He may as well be carrying a large sack of feathers. He places her in the passenger seat of his car and gets back on the road lickety-split.
“You’ll be okay. I just need some supplies.”
He stops at the nearest gas station. He races around inside to get what he needs: bandages, ice, sports drink, needle, thread, protein bar. With these items in hand, he rushes toward the register, which is next to the exit. He is stopped by a man in a police uniform. The man in the police uniform asks him about his car.
“It’s mine,” Apollo says.
The man in the police uniform does not believe Apollo.
“You have to come help me! There’s a woman in trouble!”
The man in the police uniform does not believe Apollo and is concerned that he is shouting.
“This is ridiculous! Sorry, sir. I am sure you are just doing your job. Let me show you my ID and insurance information so we can clear all of this up,” says Apollo.
Apollo goes to fish his wallet from his pocket. His naked hostility, volatile tone, and the act of reaching for what very well could be a weapon are clear signs of aggressive intent, and the man in the police uniform has no choice but to withdraw his own weapon and fire several shots. Apollo is struck first in the stomach, then the shoulder. He does not immediately die. Instead he spends several moments on the floor of the convenience store, struggling to breathe as his consciousness fades into nothing. Then, he dies.
What the fuck is happening? Seriously. Where is this dude coming from? I haven’t written that many stories, but I really don’t think that’s how these things are supposed to go. The way I was taught, you establish character and setting, introduce conflict, develop themes, then end on an emotional climax. That’s it. Nobody said anything about killers popping up out of nowhere. Not in this genre, anyway.
So hear me out. I think we may be dealing some kind of metafictional entity, a living concept, an ideolinguistic infection. I don’t know how he got in here, but he should be easy enough to deal with. I think we just need to reason with him. He’s probably a nice guy. Just doing his job, trying to keep the story safe. He was probably genuinely afraid that Apollo was reaching for a gun. You never know with people these days. Life is scary.
Besides, that story wasn’t working either. That Apollo was a big phony, totally unbelievable. Guys like that went out of style with Flash Gordon and bell-bottoms. It’s not just about liking the protagonist. You have to be able to relate to them, right? I think that’s how it works. That’s what everybody says, anyway. To be honest, I don’t really get the whole “relatability” thing. Isn’t the point of reading to subsume one’s own experience for the experience of another, to crawl out of one’s body and into a stranger’s thoughts? Why would you want to read about someone just like you? Stories are windows, not mirrors. Everybody’s human. Shouldn’t that make them relatable enough? I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. I thought smoking was a weird thing to do too, but then I tried smoking and was addicted forever. Maybe I’ve just never come across a good mirror.
So let’s do a child. Everybody loves children, and everybody was one. Plus it’s really easy to make them super-relatable. Just throw some social anxiety disorder and a pair of glasses on some little fucking weirdo and boom: you got a movie deal. It’ll be a coming-of-age hero’s-journey sort of thing, adolescence viewed through a gossamer haze of nostalgia.