Dew

for Ben Fenton-Smith None are more familiar with dew than professional footballers. From early grades they are used to running through practice drills and hurling their burly frames through rucks while the moist chaff of wet grass under the winter lights softens their fall, accustoms the half- back to the slippery ball and writes green cuneiform on wet sandshoes. And they fear it in the morning, kicking off the dew in the ‘twos’ because they ignored a coach’s warning. Half their lives are spent in clouds of condensation or the cold heat of a winter sun where even the crowds seem like droplets on the concrete rose of the stadium. In the final days of their season , sweat-spangled on the eve of their triumph, the ball on a string and their plays honed, even the doubters believe. And the last day is, once again, already an aftermath: the ground’s been shaved and sucked dry by the noon sun and the paddock has become a paved and bristled hell for those who will collide with it and pinion flesh on earth, earth on flesh and spill blood for the sake of the game. Possession is the law; all are possessed. And when the crowd melts into the dry darkness, after that great red football’s booted between the uprights of the sky- scrapers and gone, the sky bawls cheerless little drops for the victors and decks the oval with the losers’ jewels.