#1067; The Post-Game Interview

Comic Transcripts

[[Sports reporter holding microphone to football player]]
Reporter: Great game, Red. Amazing run in those final second. What was going through your mind during that play?
Red: Well, I definitely wanted the ball, you know, I wanted to catch that ball.
And when I did, I just started running, because that’s how you score points and we pretend points are real.

[[Closeup of football player looking thoughtful]]
Red: And then as I ran, you know, the air seemed to dilate around me, and I found myself falling or having the sensation of falling, through a sort of vortex of collapsing spacetime.
I awoke on a desolate plain, to the sound of wailing in a language that was also the sound of my own heartbeat, coming from a girl with eyes like river stone, all dull and gray but smooth as an egg.

[[Closeup of football player concentrating, as if on a task]]
Red: And she asked me these riddles, and every time I tried to talk it was like my mouth was made of wax and my teeth were melting off, and all these crows were cawing and trying to peck at me.
So as I fought these crows I’d look back to her and she’d be older, every time I looked over, until eventually she’s an old woman and desperate for me to answer her riddles… but the crows just never let me…

[[Closeup of football player looking intense]]
Red: Then she eventually blew away like so much dust, and in that moment I realized the crows had been trying to give me answers to the riddles all along. It was up to me to learn to listen.
Once I finally did, you know, I was able to locate the well of Ereskos and drink the Skynectar to return me to this realm, and as I bid goodbye to my clan and my hearthmate I found myself instantly back in my younger body just crossing the two yard line.
So at that point, you know, I just gave it a hundred and ten percent.

{{header: long pass to WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: “I knew not whether the skynectar possessed the power it was rumored to, and took it, frankly, for rumor and myth; excavating and restoring the Well, and inviting the pilgrims to supplicate again after a thousand-year drought, was all the reward I sought from the labor.
And yet… the reflection I caught in that first bucketful was of a world I knew to be but a dream from long ago.
Suddenly, all else fell away, and I wondered in that moment if the score was still tied at 17-all.” }}

#1067; The Post-Game Interview transcribed by in

[[Sports reporter holding microphone to football player]]
Reporter: Great game, Red. Amazing run in those final second. What was going through your mind during that play?
Red: Well, I definitely wanted the ball, you know, I wanted to catch that ball.
And when I did, I just started running, because that's how you score points and we pretend points are real.

[[Closeup of football player concentrating, as if on a task]]
Red: And she asked me these riddles, and every time I tried to talk it was like my mouth was made of wax and my teeth were melting off, and all these crows were cawing and trying to peck at me.
So as I fought these crows I'd look back to her and she'd be older, every time I looked over, until eventually she's an old woman and desperate for me to answer her riddles... but the crows just never let me...

{{header: long pass to WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: "I knew not whether the skynectar possessed the power it was rumored to, and took it, frankly, for rumor and myth; excavating and restoring the Well, and inviting the pilgrims to supplicate again after a thousand-year drought, was all the reward I sought from the labor.
And yet... the reflection I caught in that first bucketful was of a world I knew to be but a dream from long ago.
Suddenly, all else fell away, and I wondered in that moment if the score was still tied at 17-all." }}

I knew not whether the skynectar possessed the power it was rumored to, and took it, frankly, for rumor and myth; excavating and restoring the Well, and inviting the pilgrims to supplicate again after a thousand-year drought, was all the reward I sought from the labor. And yet... the reflection I caught in that first bucketful was of a world I knew to be but a dream from long ago. Suddenly, all else fell away, and I wondered in that moment if the score was still tied at 17-all.