The Unfinished Line

It's not my fault.

I am well aware it's never a good sign to start a confession like that.

Actually I shouldn't be calling it a confession, either.

A report, then.

This is what happened.

Or really what almost happened…what should have happened…it's a bit of a wash at this point.

My hands are still shaking, my ears are still ringing, although it wasn't even that noisy, I just kind of have that happen from time to time.

But it's certainly not helping.

Speaking of not helping, there's my so-called friend JayBeach, who is totally okay with that being the name on whatever form of ID you can get going forward. Your birth name is only the first step in you becoming whoever you are, baby.

That's me doing a JayBeach impression.

And now JayBeach is in some sort of modern body cast and sipping all their meals through a straw. Of course, as far as I've known them they spent most of their time on the couch streaming and gaming and guzzling down protein shakes, so...y'know...the more things change...

I'm setting the stage because the stage is still on fire. I was all set to welcome our wonderful guests from all the way over there, and while I cut some corners I tried all the pulley's and latches the night before to make sure it would be safe for everyone, even those who had an extra fifty kilos on their waist.

The construction team was a good one, they'd built these sorts of things before, but I did make sure to put my own twists on some of the slides. The fact that some of the guests will be dressed in the finest will only make it more entertaining in a playful sort of way when they end up in a pool full of paint.

I was less impressed with the broadcasting section, and that's because JayBeach just got some of their friends together who had made some comedy skits and lets plays from a few months back. Sure that mean technically they knew how to film and upload and set up a live stream for all the world to see, but the amount of non-cigarette smoke that seemed to becoming out of the vans was not reassuring.

When the VIPs arrived I was already getting that bad butterfly feeling. Not just nervous, but the deep seated desire to eject everything out of all my organs. In fact, if there was a thin wire brush long enough I'd even stick it in my left ear and give my dog's breakfast a good cleaning.

I did my well-rehearsed shtick and other than the wind picking up from time to time, whipping my hair to and fro and into the face of one of more aged attendees, it went decent enough. Some of their answers were a bit of a snore, but if people had tuned in at all, they would know that what would come next would be the real meat and potatoes of this afternoon sandwich.

I'm not much with firearms, but I could fire a starter's pistol in the air without flinching, and seconds later, all our guests were off, running walking, jumping and even popping a wheelie along the grassiest of knolls. Avoid this, crawl under that, swing across that puddle with a song in your heart. I would occasionally peek over at the cluster of laptops that we're putting together all the footage of the mounted cameras and living, breathing camera people running around, and was actually quite pleased with how well the director whose name I forget was calling it. Very professional, so don't let me ever bad mouth the feel good hits of the summer.

On the final dash we had a clear front runner, and it was obvious that in this case the footwear made a huge difference. I did make a point of telling everyone that sneakers were more comfortable but that a pair of smart loafers or conservative pumps would impress the passersby at the street corner and thereby get approval to continue, and our presumptive first place was definitely rocking some wild designs.

Even better was that it was the person I bet on! Now many people might be shocked to hear that I would do such a thing for my own event, or that I told this person exactly what to expect, but I always saw this as more of a pageant than a competition. Entertainment was first and foremost. That is what I promised everyone, and that is what everyone is getting, especially as this person was bounding down the stretch, into my waiting bank account and maybe arms if I play my cards right.

So of course that's when this person grabs their proverbial side as if they've just been shot in the kidneys. And they hit the ground hard, and everyone goes 'oooohhhhh', and I probably scream, 'no fucking no!' out loud because it didn't just seem like I thought it.

I actually make it three steps before stopping myself, realizing that going onto the field of play is not going to be seem as 'just entertainment', and instead am stuck willing them with my desperate face and non-telepathic mind to get going, to make this all worth it

It's right there! In three different primary colours! Just cross it! You've spent forty minutes doing everything the rules, the stars in the sky, and the God above (patent pending?) that has demanded of you, so don't get cold broken feet right now!

Sure enough, two of the other contestants catch up and it's a last minute sprint versus a feeble zombie walk from someone clutching their side, and when it came to who actually crossed it first, well... I was staring in their beautiful blue eyes so I couldn't tell, the crowd was too far back and so they couldn't tell, and that had to mean that everyone watching - with one badly angled line camera and inevitable lag - couldn't tell either.

Fortunately I had an eagle eyed judge whose job it was to be staring at this the whole time, which really meant they could be doing anything else for ninety-nine percent of this event until this very moment. And because they've done this very thing before, when I was a contestant for this sort of thing before, it was JayBeach in the judge's seat.

So now we are all looking at them, and they are looking at us, and I could tell by their face that they missed it, that they weren't doing the one thing they were supposed to do. That they were probably staring at a bird or their hand or something.

So now JayBeach is grabbing their phone to log onto the official live stream to pull it back a couple seconds so they can watch the photo finish before making a final decision. Or at least that's what every rational person in this tent is assuming, so that when a cameraman innocuously leans over with their namesake device and shows what JayBeach is actually doing, everyone goes apeshit angry.

They're playing some goddamn video game. One of those multiplayer RPG things with a bunch of anime characters with swords and shit, and that's what everyone sees on all the screens across the world because the director thought that they would get a window into the judge's mind. Well they did, and it was 'huh?'

Plenty of yelling jostling and by now a lot of more of guests/contestants had wrapped up, who were just as confused as everyone else was angry.

Then something clicks inside JayBeach and they realize this might just be on them, and they leap into action, and began spouting some confident bullshit about the importance of this race, and how it's not about winning, it's about competition and justice, and it's actually a bit inspiring and they are walking a bit further away from all of us, and when they've got about five meters away from this loose mob of guests/contestants, organizers, and fans, they clear their throat and say:

"Now the finish line. See... no one's crossed it, in my book."

Book?

What fucking book?

I might have screamed that at them.

"If I may use the powers of my judge-itude, then I hereby decree that that finish line over there" - they point to the multicolour line of my own making - "is the penultimate finish line."

W(h)at.

"And that means the real finish line, then... is right here."

JayBeach pathetically uses the left heel of their crappy shoe to dig a line in the dirt, and they only got half a metre before the contestants didn't bother waiting and barrelled towards this new end goal, one that clearly was freshly pulled out of JayBeach's ass (the firmness of which I have no opinion).

Some might say it was a bizarre end to what was already a bizarre race. Some might say it was just a bunch of tired guests/contestants tacking some asshole who let them down at the very last minute. Either way, some punches were also thrown and JayBeach had their very busy ass handed to them.

When people turned to look to me to sort things out, I expelled everything from most of my organs, which didn't help.

Cops, ambulances and security guards eventually came. Took broken bodies away, took photos of this here and that there, and it was kind of poetic that they ended with the makeshift, impromptu line.

It remained unfinished.

Probably for the best.

END