by rakkity<\/p>\n
Once upon a time in the days of yore (2002 CE), in the little borough
\nof Bowie in the kingdom of Maryland-sur-le-Bay, a father and son
\nstarted going to the court to practice their skills in the ancient
\nsport of racquet-le-balle. They did this on a regular basis,
\nusually twice, sometimes thrice (rarely frice) per fortnight. In the
\nbeginning, the son made all the errors he was prone to: standing too
\nfar back in the court or too close to the side, leaning in one
\ndirection or the other, a little off balance, or showing by one sign
\nor another that he was expecting a shot from a certain direction. The
\nfather duly noted these mistakes and took shameless advantage of
\nthem, hammering the ball into untoward places, with unhappy effects on
\nthe son’s composure. Every time, he gently pointed out the son’s
\nmistake, but took advantage to go onto win anyway. When the son leaned
\nnorth, the service ball passed south, and when the son leaned south,
\nthe ball passed to the north. When he stood in the rear of the court,
\nthe ball landed in the front, and when he stood close to the front,
\nthe ball bounced behind him. And the scores were always lop-sided in the
\nfather’s favor.<\/p>\n
Initially the two played with the old-style racquets of base metals,
\nand the son won an occasional game due to his speed and strength. But
\nthe two players happily found newly-forged racquets of magical
\nlightweight metals, which increased the velocity of play. But with
\nthese new racquets, the player’s strength and speed made less of a
\ndifference, but scheming play worked even better. After that, over
\nthe weeks and months, the father ruled the court, losing not a game
\nduring the subsequent year of play.<\/p>\n
The situation changed when the teen-aged daughter, newly enscholared
\nat the local college, asked to join in an occasional game. Thence
\nforth, the games became three-somes, and the son and father played
\nleft-handed, so as not to overwhelm their winsome partner. With this
\narrangement, the daughter was competitive, but the son and father
\nstill won a reasonable fraction of the games, and kept their right
\narms rested for the occasional right-handed battle, which the father
\npersisted in winning.<\/p>\n
Two years into these games, the son left the borough to seek his
\nfortune, but returned to town every Friday to test his mettle on the
\ncourt. During that year he seemed to grow still taller, and his arms
\nlonger. He learned not to stand too far back or forward in the court,
\nand showed no tendency to lean to one side or the other. In the
\nfather-son games, he commanded the center and, with his height and
\nreach, no corner of the court was safe for the ball to pass him by.
\nStill, by hook and treacherous crook, his old father managed to sneak
\nthe ball around him, using wall-grazing returns with twisty spins and
\nsemi-magical back-wall drops that eluded the son’s reach.<\/p>\n
Over time, the son developed a powerful back-hand, with all the
\npractice of returning balls that fell elusively to the back wall in
\nthe depths of the corners, in such a way that only a back-handed smash
\noff the back wall had any chance of returning to the front wall. His
\nleaps and upward stretches made it almost impossible to loft a ball
\nover his head. His speed and lack of fear at crashing head-first into
\nthe side walls made it difficult for the father to get a wall-grazer
\npast him. But the father just grew more cunning, and never repeated
\nexactly the same kind of shot in sequence. <\/p>\n
The scores of these father-son games grew ever closer, sometimes with
\nthe son losing only 10-15 or 11-15, and occasionally games would start
\noff with the son winning four, even five, serves in a row. But the
\nfather knew the son’s few remaining fatal weaknesses, and he would
\nproceed to win several points in a row, eventually pulling ahead and
\ngoing on to win. He played these games like chess, serving often to
\nthe corner deeps, and sometimes making a surreptitious slow serve
\nright after a series of fast serves. He served shots that traced a z,
\nor a backwards z, making the ball apparently curve through the air,
\nre-bounding parallel to the court’s back wall. In the early months,
\nserves like these used to bedevil the son and drive him to swing
\nfutilely and miss, or if he didn’t miss, return with a weak parry that
\nled the father to a kill.<\/p>\n
The increasing skill of the son would have led inevitably, if only by
\nrandom luck, to a win against the father, except for the
\nfortuitous appearance on the scene of the old master Zarro.<\/p>\n
———————To be continued—————————-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by rakkity Once upon a time in the days of yore (2002 CE), in the little borough of Bowie in the kingdom of Maryland-sur-le-Bay, a father and son started going to the court to practice their skills in the ancient … Continue reading