He hears the cicadas calling and saw one on his shoulder in the dugout. She leaped and her legs went forth from beginning to end and she would never come down. She twirled her feet around the point of her toes and her arms arched in the air to a point above her. His cleats collide hard on the pavement in constant rhythm.

He once saw his sister dancing, and she leaped into the air like her feet would never hit the ground. The crowd cheered anyhow, and his parents cheered also, but he knew that his parents would cheer for him whether he hit the ball or not. The ball was thrown and in between the throwing and the hitting the ball traveled its path, and when he hit the ball it would go up and away and he would direct its course. Everything is in place and where it shall be, and all will be numbered accordingly, separated and sucked into a pocket, and what is done will be done and come to its own fruition. Three birds in their lawn chairs each sing hello, each in succession, so that backwards they would sing no different. Waving with his only arm, the other gone. A car could come at him and he could step away in time and see himself smash up against the car.Ī neighbor whose name is already in one book or another steps out of his house and waves slowly at the boy going by. He runs so fast because when he is fast the world behind and in front of him is slow, and he closes his eyes and imagines he is slow and floating through the air. He knows that if he fell he would hit the ground, and this has never changed. He feels them rising and swallowing the people inside further inward, people reaching outward with desperate fingers, to take him or have him take them he does not know. Houses to the left of him and houses to the right, solid and continuing. He looks behind him, the thunder and the flash having come and gone.

An Authentic Derivative by Caleb Coy