Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Apology – Daily Writing – July 26

A football crowd inside his mind urges the player down the field, his boots hover an inch off the ground, he’s a bullet train with magnetic boots gliding on unseen tracks under the brilliant green astro turf. It seems unthinkable that he will do anything other than score. The ball makes a pinging noise as the square of his boot hits the sweet spot. The ball dimples and then responds to the kick bulleting toward the far post, but the goal keeper has it’s trajectory marked, right until a defender tries some heroics with a diving header, but it all goes horribly wrong. Instead of a deflection he alters the trajectory to the impossible place the goalkeeper cannot maneuver too. The ball scoots to the upper corner of the net. The crowd erupts in a volcanic frenzy of horns and cheers and whoops.

The defender is straddled on the ground. He feels the crushing weight of the cheers and his self worth dissolves into dirt. The humiliation of an own goal is immediate, but apologies and a post match aftermath will inevitably result. He already tastes the wash up like soapy suds on his tongue. He knows he has not done ‘good enough’ and will need to apologise to the whole team – or make up for it with a goal at the other end. As the game progresses the thought of the apology begins to scar his consciousness. He wants to get in there and lift it up and get it healed as soon as possible. He tries to think what words he might use. There seems to be a mountain of them to choose from. It’s an ascent he doesn’t really want to really make………