Enjoy!
Living the Dream
By
Margaret A. Golla
Life was
good. I was living the dream.
Athletic,
good-looking, and smart. Who could not love me, right?
I blew
through high school without having to open a book. When you are the star of the
team, people do things for you. I simply took advantage of their motivation.
Was there
anything wrong with that?
Girls
flocked around me like a rock star. I had my chick pick after every Friday
night game. Though my mother would be ashamed of me, I took advantage of their
desires.
Universities
courted me. The perks of being the star of the team came in small packages:
steak dinners, weekend trips to any place, and the little red Corvette sitting
in my driveway.
Of course,
they had to do some creative financing to cover up the bribes.
What did I
care? That was their problem. I just simply enjoyed the fruits of their labor.
I picked a
University far away from home. I didn’t need my parents or friends getting in
the way of living my dream.
I worked
hard, ate well, and was very good at my job on the team, but I wanted more. I
wanted to be the star.
But the team
wasn’t doing as well as everyone expected. And when the star of the team
disappeared, Coach said he went home because he was so disappointed in his
failings.
This
opportunity gave me a chance to be the star in the Homecoming Game. This game
was pivotal. Win and our team got endorsements and money from the alums. Lose and
we would have to run with the bulls. I didn’t know what that meant, but it
couldn’t be too bad, right?
We lost.
Running with
the bulls was a little different than I expected. It should have been called
running with the flying bots. The entire A squad was on the run.
That was
when I found out what happened to the previous star player.
He’d fed us
. . . literally.
A bot
cornered me in a dead end. Sweat sprung from every pore of my body when I
realized this thing had my death written in its software. I’d failed my school
and had to pay. The University took advantage of my dream, but when I didn’t
deliver, well, let’s just say they cut their losses.
And I was
their star loser.
The bot
lowered its sights for a good, clean head shot. It wouldn’t want to destroy the
meat on my good-looking, athletic body, right?
I just
wondered whose dream I would be feeding now.
THE END
