Uzair's+Memoir

  __He..could...go...all...the...way.... or not.__ As I lay frozen, adjacent to a colossal Evergreen, I’m awoken from my deep slumber. As I open my weary eyes, I cross my pupils and discover a brown leaf has stumbled upon my delicate light-brown nose. As I peer my head around, I see trees that have the most beautiful leaves ever.They remind me of my neon lamp I have in my room on the second floor of my house. A gentle breeze runs through black choppy hair and causes me to shiver in the cold air. Oh, the beauty of Autumn. I swerve my head 90 degrees and see baboons trying to play hand-egg. (Hand-egg is football, but I don’t like the term football. I mean, you don’t even use your feet most of the time. Also, the ball looks like an egg. Therefore, hand-egg). Praying they would leave me alone, I prepared for the worst. Then it came, the chief baboon called me over. My cousin, Robby, invited me to play a game of hand-egg, or he would mock me for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I hate hand-egg, in fact, I love that sport. I could probably outrun everybody there, even though they were almost five years older than me. But, everyone always fought over me. Saying things like, “He’s on my team, no complaints”, or “Uzair, come on my team or else.” It aggravated me to no end. Seeing no way out, I gave in. Boy, were they in for a surprise. Recently, my mother had sent me to Camp Tears Football Camp. I was going to dominate like the Lakers when they face the Celtics. As usual, the team captains fought over me like hyenas over a zebra corpse. I just stuck to whatever team they wanted me on. In the midst of all the illiterates, I was the only sane person there.  My team captain was one of my older friends, Darius. He was probably the most prodigious player in the group besides Robby. I always looked up to him when it came to sports. He was sort of my mentor you could say, only he didn’t know that. Then, out of nowhere, Darius called the play. To impress him, I ran as fast as I could down the spacious field and turned around, only to see the hand-egg plummeting into my face at 100 mph. Without much of a choice, I dived at the ball with my hands stretched out as far as a I could. Then, with a battle cry, I caught the egg. Except, I was about to die. When I said I was faster than almost everyone there, I forgot to say that, they were 10x stronger than me. So, with another gut wrenching battle cry, I sprinted to the myriad of buffaloes charging my way. It was fairly easy to get past them without even breaking a sweat. Every time I got the egg, the defenders always tackled me by my feet, so all I had to do was jump on their back and use the force of the impact to fly up in the air, landing me perfectly upright in the touchdown zone. However, this time, It was not going to work. As I carried out my plan, I was outsmarted. Robby, the opposing team captain, saw through my act and charged at my full speed, but not fast enough so his team members got there before me. He then waited for me to jump and dived at my torso, just as I was in the air, about to make a glorious touchdown. “CRASH!” The way I remember it, getting tackled at that speed plus his brute strength knocked me head over heels. The last thing I recall before I passed out was a massive bulldozer of a guy crashing into me with full force. I awoke again next to the Evergreen, from whence I was sleeping and couldn’t see anyone in sight. Maybe, I couldn’t see because I was still sleeping, or maybe it was because I was covered in leaves! Getting out of the leaves was just as annoying as having to put up with my mother’s nagging. So, I slowly rose from my grave like an undead zombie and stomped right up to the guys and looked at them with disdain in my eyes. They looked at me with Snickers half-hanging from their unreasonably, grotesque mouths. I wanted to pulverize them to dust. I mean who did they think I was, some sort of plebeian that can be tossed around. And Darius! How could he? He was supposed to be my friend. I guess you can’t trust anyone. Without much hesitation, I jumped on Robby’s back and bit his ear. Typical seven year old huh? Well, that was practically fruitless, needless to say. He flipped me over faster than a fat guy can eat a Thanksgiving dinner. Then, he stuffed his half-eaten Snickers bar right in my face. The oozing wet saliva emanating from the contaminated chocolate bar, germinated my anger even more. I stood up, kicked him in the crotch, until the proximity between our eyes was barely an inch. Then, I did the most gutsy thing ever. I yelled, “MOM!!” Luckily, for Robby, my mom and dad were out of the house getting some groceries. That left me with no where to run. I turned around and pumped my legs. Running was futile. He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and whispered into my ear. The words were like fingernails scratching against a chalkboard. “You’re dead!” Quivering in fear, I thrust my hands out in front of my face and waited. The cracking of bones made me lurch forward and cough up blood. That (well I can’t say in front of the kids), but in nicer terms, a silly goose. He actually had the nerve to punch me right in the guts. This would not go unsaid. I would have my revenge. Without much thought, I stood up weakly and kicked him in the crotch again and again. I know, I know, but it was all I could do. I ran away from all of them. Only to look back and see my friends by my side, helping me walk. Inside the kitchen, I gargled all the blood out and took slow deep breaths. A black Mercedes pulled up in front of my driveway. I slowly crept from under the roof of the house and spilled onto the black pavement. There, my mother and father were reported to about Robby’s hideous actions and he was sent home. After that, I don’t even want to know what his mom and dad did with him. I had won. I was never going to play hand-egg with him ever again. Hey you know what they say, “No pain, no gain.” Wait a minute...there was no gain for me. Only pain. How is that fair? I felt like slapping destiny across the face. No way am I going to be a hand-egg player.   