Dave's Manifesto

Nobody out, nobody on, batter hits a grounder to short. Blinkey, the saddest clown in the whole damn circus, playing catcher, follows through on his duty and runs with the batter down to first to back up the throw. The batter flings his bat back. The bat twirls barrel over handle, past the baseline, and though Blinkey tries his best to deflect it with his arms, the thick aluminum barrel still strikes him on the forehead.

Had Blinkey been a lazy player and remained squatting behind the plate, the bat would not have hit him. Still as he woozily finished out the game, he marveled at how sometimes when you do your job the little things can go unnoticed. He had already saved a couple of errant throws earlier in the season, yet most catchers weren't quite so conscientious in performing all the tasks of the position. He understood however, for a team to be successful the importance of all members of a team contributing all the little "extras" that made up the difference between winning and losing. And thus he didn't mind the throbbing inside his head. It was all part of the job in the name of teamwork.

Later that night, as he sat in his aluminum sided apartment contemplating what to make for dinner in his stainless steel pan, Blinkey wearily removed his makeup mask, one that had grown more and more into a face of stunned disbelief. The mask still cloaked his face in decency even though Blinkey, the saddest clown in the whole damn circus, had dropped out of the spotlight long ago. He glanced through his cupboards and his wheezing refrigerator. The milk was sour, the cheese moldy; the bananas had gone brown and the shrimp salad was rancid. Upon further reflection, all he owned, all he was holding on to shared the exact same expiration date! Who would have thunk it?! Everything had gone bad at once! Blinkey now was the most unlucky clown in the whole damn circus!

The store was too far away and thus it struck him that what he wanted was quite out of grasp both in time and distance. What was in front of him was frustratingly as out of reach because of its expired dates, as that which lie far far away. He went to bed that night with a bump on his noggin, cold, hungry and a wee bit disoriented.

He had wanted to call up one who was many miles away, still traveling within the greatest show on earth. He still saw her in all that was beautiful. He knew that her words would give him a different perspective on the way things were going than he could think of by himself. But he had no idea where the show was, and how he could ever reach her again if he ever had in the first place. Did he regret not being out there? No not really. Maybe she would even have been proud of what he was accomplishing most days.

Blinkey did soundly sleep unlike most nights which were spent restlessly tossing and turning. He was tired and perhaps the benefit of his injury was that his head was truly in a different time and place than normal. The image of the flying bat etched its way through his mind. Slow motion. By the time his alarmed buzzed in the morning, he had almost been able to convince himself that his head didn't hurt. He still had his job to do and that was all that mattered these days.

Smile Blinkey, he said to himself. Teamwork, TEAMwork, TEAMWORK!!! The tasks of his job did energize him. He knew whatever he felt, he needed to do his work because what he did had an impact on those around him. That in itself made him feel a little better. It may not have been like the game he had been involved in the night before, but a job was a job, a role a role, and this was his duty now. He turned on his computer and checked his Internet mail. The mask he wore certainly could continue to shield him and prove most effective. Flying bats flew by the wayside, expiration dates continued to pass and go but Blinkey wobbly as he now felt, would continue to press on. He thought about the way things had been going and he began to laugh like he never laughed before. He laughed so long. So long.