At the first whistle, there were 22 men on the pitch. A sunny afternoon in Berlin. At the final whistle, one will have been abducted by aliens, the television cameras will have fizzed out, and a small collection of trees will have begun to grow over the center of the pitch. Nevertheless, the crowd would sway the stadium and all the seats over which they stood with song.
Minute #1: Kickoff. Frederickson made an early break down the left flank. He had just returned from New Orleans the night before. He was thinking about how plants grew out of the houses down there on Esplanade Avenue like Sam Cooke or some equally comparable soul singer (inasmuch as there can be one) stepping out of a tent on the freezing side of a mountain, singing out into the air, and taking the frozen shape of the air to some sort of botanist as a special request. Man #10 just kept saying to himself in a constant loop, “My shoelaces. My shoelaces.”
At minute 35: a goal! A goal! A goal! Jesus returned to earth! Tupac and Andy Kaufman emerged in the jumping joy of madness, shouting, “Guys! We're not actually dead! Guys!” Someone actually admitted that Thomas Pynchon was a construct wrought entirely by masons! People began comparing the notion of reparations in India, Colombia (which actually had a program underway), and the United States! Confetti exploded into tinier pieces of confetti, which -- in turn -- exploded into even tinier pieces of --
At minute 82: man #3 started to wonder what exactly those lights were coming over the stadium walls. Man #18: “And is that the bus?” Man #19: “No, it's n – why would you –” Man #3: “Who knows, man?” Man #18: “You know that's not my name.”