Audiobook - Heart of the Game
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
the crowd pushed around her a massive denim in skin blocking the sun and even at times the air. Tall trunks of legs rose past her line of sight, a solid forest uprooted, flowing and shifting like a river and carrying her along. Everyone towered impossibly high and swift around her, a legion of giants. But such is the worldview of every four year old. With her small hand engulfed securely in her father's, she found nothing disconcerting about her inability to see beyond the blue jeans in front of her. She allowed herself to be pulled along in his wake, content three part of this stream of people with him. For once, she even looked like him now. Almost her overalls were only a shade lighter than his pants, and they covered her legs the same way, even if they did come up higher and have silver buckles. They also said Oshkosh, she liked that word. Her mother had said it when she pointed to the Blue label. Her father didn't have a blue label, but he wore a red shirt like hers, read like a fire truck, red like a crayon red, like the little bird on her hat. It wasn't her hat, though. It was agents, but Aidan was sick, so she got to wear it. She also got his ticket. Take it, she said, the word loudly enough to be heard by her own years, then float away on the sea of moving trunks behind her. She liked the word as much as she like this slip of paper protruding from her tight fist. She'd seen it at home but hadn't been allowed to touch it until they'd come into this cavernous hallway once in the dim night in the forest of knees. Her father had handed it to her. She sensed its importance without understanding its purpose and silently hoped to prove herself worthy of this thing. This ticket she felt more than saw their path change. There was a pause than a step to the left, a few more steps forward than over. Soon they were near a wall close enough. She could have touched it, but she didn't. She followed only the denim knees. She recognized us hiss as they turned down another smaller hall. This one wasn't this crowded light slipped in among the legs ahead, and the grey slab walls on either side offered shelter from the pushing, grinding river of bodies. Her father slowed, allowing the tension in their joint arms to slack in, and she scooted up even with him. Gradually, the layers of legs before her stepped away, each one leaving more slivers of sunlight for her eyes to adjust to until finally, the last of the legs stepped away, revealing the most beautiful sight her young eyes had ever seen. The enormity of the view seeped in slowly, like the gentle warmth of the setting sun against her cheeks. The path before her descended steeply toe a low wall separating this plane of cold gray concrete from a vast open field of colors more vibrant than anything she had in her box of crayons. The dirt was a rich shade of orange, but not like an actual orange. Burnt, crumbled and cut through with stark, bold white lines. They offered a dry contrast to the lush green of the grass, which stood bright and deep, rippling into patterns. Rose crossed one another in the faintest shades, lighter or darker, like those left by her mother's vacuum across their living room carpet. If someone had vacuumed the field It must have been God shortly. No person could have done something so big and so perfect, even though the concept of the divine hovered foggy and uncertain in her mind. She knew God lived in the stained glass and tall pipe organ of her church, and she knew instinctively he lived here, too. Men who are rather big boys occupied the field. They dotted the richly colored grass, the brilliant white of their clothes signalling to her. They were part of the field, or maybe the field belonged to them. They ran about back and forth, or swung bats. Some of them simply sat in the grass, arms and legs outstretched, bending and straightening languidly. They were playing the formality of God's blended with the youthfulness of Children. To draw her closer, a group of younger Children brushed past her, their hands clutching cotton candy popcorn snow cones. But her eyes remained locked on something more compelling than any petty treat. The men on the field had birds on their shirts, red birds right and definitive against the white, the same little bird she had on her hat. She drew steadily nearer, now slowly but purposefully, inching closer over the lip of each stair.