It was quiet, painfully so, in the clubhouse. They had all gone home. The remnants laid there though, the proof that the game had happened. Sure, there was the tape which had held Nelson's wrist tightly, the half-shells of sunflower seeds that had been spit so effortlessly on to the vacuumed floor. The green cups that had held the liquid which was meant to encourage their bodies in the sport they were so well-tuned to perform were littered across the carpet. And there, on the table, as was true every night, laid Willie, in pain and discomfort.
He felt the pains and aches of a decade and a half of constant effort held compact in his knees.