Guy Carter of London, United Kingdom is the winner of the 2024 ServiceScape Short Story Award.
His short story "Schnauzer's Lob" is an engaging and creatively crafted narrative that vividly intertwines the themes of competition, personal transformation, and the unexpected impacts of human connections. It won the contest for several reasons:
- Unique Concept and Execution: The story blends the traditional sports narrative with elements of personal journey and mythical-like transformation, centering around the tennis match while exploring deeper themes. The use of the lob as both a literal and metaphorical device is innovative, representing not just a tennis strategy but also a character's path to self-discovery and mastery.
- Character Development: The characters of Weiner and Schnauzer are well-developed, with contrasting styles and philosophies that add depth to the narrative. Schnauzer's transformation under the guidance of a former Yakuza assassin adds a layer of intensity and intrigue, showcasing his journey from a middling player to a master of his craft through dedication and a unique approach to tennis.
- Engaging Plot and Pacing: The plot unfolds with a balance of action and introspection, maintaining a pace that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish. The final scenes are particularly effective, blending high tension on the court with humorous and poignant moments that enrich the story.
- Rich Language and Imagery: The story is rich with imagery and has a strong narrative voice that brings scenes to life. Descriptions of the tennis matches are vivid and filled with tension, making readers feel as though they are watching the events unfold. The language is also peppered with humor and sharp dialogue, which lightens the narrative and adds character.
- Emotional Impact and Resonance: The story goes beyond the surface level of a sports match to explore themes of ambition, legacy, and personal fulfillment. The interactions among characters, especially in the climactic scenes, evoke a range of emotions from the reader, culminating in a satisfying and heartwarming conclusion.
In summary, "Schnauzer's Lob" succeeds because it is more than just a story about a tennis match; it is a rich, multi-layered narrative that combines elements of sports, personal struggle, and human connection into a compelling and memorable tale. Its originality, coupled with strong character development and masterful storytelling, makes it a standout submission in the contest.
You can find his story below. We look forward to reading more great submissions for our 2025 short story contest.
Schnauzer's Lob
By Guy Carter
Weiner felt a stab of pain in his left ankle as he and Schnauzer entered centre court.
He knelt down and administered a quick massage. It had hurt much of the tournament but, with physio and spray-on anaesthetic, he'd made the finals.
Someone catcalled him.
A man in shirt sleeves was seated near the entrance. He'd clearly been at the corporate bar before settling in. He expressed slurred surprise that Weiner had made it this far and let it be known he was heavily betting against him. His eye fell on a solidly-built woman directly in front of him and he made a further crude wager. She flinched and turned her head sideways. The catcaller chuckled and doubled down, increasing the stakes and pouring more scorn on Weiner's sporting prowess.
"Did anyone else hear that?" the woman asked.
"Yes ma'am," drawled a languid southern voice. "And I'd be honoured to represent you should Mr. Weiner win the championship."
Weiner rejoined Schnauzer at the high chair. They shook the umpire's hand, sat down and unsheathed their rackets.
They were well matched and tournament honours were evenly divided between them. The odds, possibly, slightly favoured Schnauzer. He had a powerful first serve and would wear opponents down from the back of the court. Weiner preferred seizing territory close to the net, intercepting shots before they landed. His own serves were somewhat lacklustre; he'd dropped his share of double faults along the way to the finals. He lacked the vertical inches needed to power a ball past the net's gravitational pull, depending on ferocious follow-ups to returns of serve.
The umpire called time.
They took to their respective ends and started exchanging warm-up shots.
There was more at stake here than the Kennelworth-Kibble Masters trophy. Doberman, the world's number one, had fallen to an unseeded player earlier on. His ranking points had been stagnating for a while, thanks to a louche lifestyle and off-court complications: a spate of paternity suits were keeping him awake at night and off the practice court. And, at two and three respectively, Schnauzer and Weiner were both within striking distance of the top spot. A win today would secure it for either.
The umpire called time.
Schnauzer to serve.
He bounced the tennis ball on the grass then tossed it above his head.
He aced it.
"Fifteen, love."
He aced it again.
"Thirty, love."
There was a heckle from the seats.
"Quiet please!"
Weiner got his racket to the next ball but knocked it into the net. Schnauzer saw the game out without facing a single return.
"Game to Schnauzer. Schnauzer leads by one game to nil, first set. Weiner to serve."
Their two styles of play reflected their differing temperaments. Schnauzer struck a gloomy, austere figure on court: part Trappist monk; part Transylvanian count. His face showed neither elation nor despair but rather an unsettling stillness. He'd immersed himself in the classic texts of sports psychology. Solitude, he'd come to understand, was the tennis player's natural condition. He got by without the camaraderie of a team. Maybe a goalie, facing a penalty in a cup final, got closest to feeling the isolation he endured with every shot. He was the masterless samurai of the sports circuit, his future often dependent – like the rōnin swordsman before him – on a single stroke.
Weiner was all velocity and gut instinct. He zipped across court in a way that was dazzling to watch, hunting down returns he should have lost and pitching them back over a net while facing the wrong way. He wasn't shy about venting his frustrations out loud either, and after a particular howler of a botched shot was known to curse – in no particular order – God, his own incompetence and the groundsman. In the end this match came down to a test between mental steel and animal agility.
Weiner's tournament nerves had yet to settle. He lost his service game and Schnauzer went on to pocket the first set six-four.
Schnauzer had spent his career stalled in the mid one hundreds of the world rankings: a respected player but not a feared one. He'd accumulated all the skills needed to keep him afloat at a professional level. Backhand, top spin, chip, volley; each had a laconic poetry he dwelt on as if they were haikus in need of perpetual polishing. He practised incremental improvement, a slow advance along all fronts. He became good. He became better than good. But too many of his peers still outclassed him in speed, strategy and style. One tactic, in particular, always caught him off guard: the rush to the net. He lacked the whippet-like quickness required to reach the subsequent drop-shot or smash hit.
One day, brooding over his shortcomings in the self-improvement section of his local bookshop, his eye was caught by a bright yellow spine with a three word title. And there it was he encountered for the first time the doctrine of The One Thing: complete dominance in a single aspect of a chosen field. It struck him like a revelation from on high. He didn't need to excel his opponents at every level of the game; he just had to surpass them all at one. And from that moment onwards he devoted his spare time to cultivating a supreme shot, a terror weapon: the unplayable lob.
Critical Lob Theory came to obsess his every waking moment. He devoured written accounts of its earliest maestros. He compiled the most complete video library extant of the shot. He examined every anti-lob counter-measure: swing volleys; back sweeps; the lob return of the lob. He kept Federer's back-between-the-legs returns on a loop.
His quest for perfection resembled that of an anchorite in search of divine mercy. He submitted himself to being pelted by a rapid-fire serving machine. He adopted every physical routine offered by gym or dojo, increasing his upper body strength and powering up his calves. He delved into the martial arts, darkening his various belts until they all became a perfect black. It was about this time he came into contact with Ninjitsu, the discipline of those famously secretive Japanese assassins. Here was a mindset, he thought, worth exploring.
He found a martial arts supplier in his home city, wedged in a back alley between a tattoo parlour and a second hand comics shop. He worked his way through the proffered collection of macabre armaments. He was entranced by the ingenuity on display; the variety of ways devised to take out an opponent. The weapons had been designed, the shop owner said, at a time when possessing a sword – if you weren't a samurai - was a capital offence. One day, when he was showing off a set of Shuriken - wicked-looking throwing stars with sharpened blades – he dropped the name of a famous modern practitioner. Long since retired, he'd ended up specializing in the morning star. This, it seemed, was a spiked ball, usually swung from the end of a chain. In his hands, though, it had become a detached missile, one he could hurl to transfix an ace of spades pinned to a tree hundreds of feet away. Rumour had it he'd served a Yakuza crime family and become their chief enforcer. The supplier lowered his voice. There were even whispers, he said, that he'd managed to crush the skull of a fellow gangster hidden behind a wall with a single perfectly-directed lob. The moment he heard that Schnauzer knew he had to track the fellow down.
His search led him from the slums of Tokyo to the foothills of Mount Fuji where he found a small, mild-mannered man in his eighties living in modest circumstances. Though his clan tattoos were visible on his forearms, he now passed his days attending to his bonsai garden and executing sumi-e ink paintings in the style of Miyamoto Musashi. He greeted his visitor with the wariness you'd expect from a man with his past. But Schnauzer had done his homework: he produced a case of the man's favourite Malt. He was accepted as a pupil on the spot and stayed a year.
Schnauzer ran errands, prepared all the meals and paid the bills. In return the ex-assassin taught him how to lob a morning star. He guided him through various visualization techniques until Schnauzer seemed to enter the spiked sphere with his mind and will it towards its target. These core practices were then adapted for tennis balls. And only much later was the racket introduced. The secret, the Yakuza confided, was to forge body and imagination into a single unit until to think an act was to accomplish it. Picture the spot where the ball must land and mind and musculature blended to ensure that it did. By the time Schnauzer shared a farewell jug of saké with his diminutive mentor he could lob a ball blindfolded onto any part of a tennis court with pinpoint precision.
"Mr. Schnauzer," the Yakuza said. "I can teach you nothing more. You have mastered your craft. And I have no doubt you will join the ranks of the very best in your chosen field of endeavour."
He took a deep sip.
"But if you want to join the gods of your sport, if you truly wish to be the greatest of all, there is one last faculty you must awaken within yourself."
"And what is that, sensei?"
"You must become pitiless."
"I don't understand."
It was growing dark outside. The Yakuza peered into the gloom as if spectral presences were gathering to eavesdrop on his words, of famous assassins and warlords silently signalling their approval as their greatest secret was transmitted from one soul to another.
The Yakuza leaned forward, his voice barely audible, his words seeming to issue from the shadows themselves. He imagined, he said, Schnauzer believed his aim was to overcome an opponent in a game of tennis, and then repeat the process with every subsequent game, each time relying on his superior skill. That, he said, was not so. The truth was simpler and more brutal: his task was to crush one man utterly on court; to so break his spirit that he would shrink from any rematch; to drive him from the very sport itself. This act of complete psychic demolition would send shockwaves throughout the sporting world. Destroy one, terrify a thousand. Sun Tzu had written that a battle must be won before it is started. Obliterate an enemy this completely and you'll be victorious in all future matches simply by stepping onto court.
He took another sip.
When he'd famously crushed his rival's skull with the morning star, he continued, the event had entered Yakuza folklore, enlarging his mythic status with every retelling. He'd only to turn up at his boss's side for any negotiation to swing decisively in his clan's favour.
Then he took out and unrolled a parchment scroll. On it was a surreal, gothic design: part skull, part coiling dragon. Do this one thing and come back, the Yakuza said, and that design would be tattooed onto his back. It would be his passport to a vast clandestine world with all its immense privileges: he would have its fealty and its protection for life. He would join the gods of the underworld.
Schnauzer's return to the circuit was explosive. After a year's hiatus, he'd slipped down the rankings; now his ascent back through them was giddying. A new ruthlessness had entered his game. And spearheading this assault was a signature shot that drove players to the back of the court where they were pummelled without pity. Before long it had entered the lexicon.
'Schnauzer's Lob.'
Someone opened a social media account under its name and it quickly acquired a devout following. Clips of this exotic shot were lovingly uploaded, shared and endlessly analysed. No-one could counter it. The household names of tennis tripped over themselves, collapsing in comic heaps scrambling to get to it. Schnauzer appeared on tape lazily playing with them before finishing them off with a salvo of first serve aces. Lobs that bounced into the stands vanished among the spectators to reappear online and trade for substantial sums. Meanwhile Schnauzer became the world number two. But sponsors swarmed to him without effect: he lived a simple, frugal life. His sportswear remained unblemished and logo-free.
Weiner's tennis shirt, by way of contrast, was smothered with them. For him it was all about the money. He hadn't, however, got off to a good start. And, as he towelled down his racket handle, the catcaller felt he'd deprived Weiner of his insights long enough. He drew loud attention to his shortness of stature; he suggested that a lack of sexual vigour was probably sentencing his family name to extinction.
The umpire shushed him and called time.
"Weiner to serve."
The first ball hit the top of the net but fell inside the box. The second landed at Schnauzer's feet, taking him by surprise. The first game went with serve. There was now a determined glint in Weiner's eye. The crowd leaned forward, sensing a shift in the dynamic. The TV commentator muttered 'Is this the beginning of the fight back?' to three million viewers; three million viewers were wondering exactly the same thing themselves.
Schnauzer's first serve went down the line, touching the line itself and sending up a puff of chalk dust. It should have been an ace. Weiner pounced on it and slammed it securely inside Schnauzer's service line where it barrelled into a side panel, narrowly missing a ball boy. He glanced over his shoulder: what he saw there made him smile.
Schnauzer tried again. The attempt went wide and his follow-up was over-soft. Weiner punished it. Love-thirty. Schnauzer instantly recovered his aggression and fought his way back to a deuce. Advantage swung this way and that. Then Weiner stole the point and the game with a nasty little shot that struck the top of the net, rolled sideways like a drunk on a highwire before toppling onto the far side. For some reason this seemed to entertain him no end. He struggled to hold back a fit of giggles. He fought off Schnauzer's counter-attack to hold onto his own serve. By the time he sat down for a slug of barley water his sides were visibly shaking. He had to clamp his hand over his mouth to prevent any laughter leaking out.
A weird joie de vivre had possessed him. Every point seized in the teeth of Schnauzer's onslaught lit up his face. He'd glance towards the crowd, grin broadly then return refreshed to the fray. From time to time he'd raise his hand to pause and allow a spasm of soundless hilarity to pass through him before he could continue.
Schnauzer's features remained unchanged. He'd faced down grunting opponents before. He'd seen off temper-tantrum prima donnas. Little discomposed his equanimity. But this was different. Was Weiner actually mocking him? He fumbled a first serve; then netted the second. His first double fault of the match. Weiner burst out laughing. "Well, well, well," observed the TV commentator. "In all my born days I've never seen..." Three million viewers shook their heads in unison; neither had they.
"Mr. Weiner!" the umpire chastened him.
Weiner sobered up and moments later reverted to being the scampering points hunter that had made him the world's number three. He anticipated Schnauzer's returns, arriving a split second ahead of each ball. He darted about court like a quantum particle, popping up at different parts of it simultaneously. Against the earlier run of play he achieved a five-four advantage and found himself serving for the set. He thumped the ball down the centre, hitting the line and shaking the rear board with a reverberating thud. His first ace. Not of the match. Or the tournament. But of his career.
He stared in open-mouthed astonishment. Then he glanced towards a section of the crowd, sharing his amazement with them. His smile broadened and he pointed at one spectator in particular, tilting his head in a gesture of "I bet you weren't expecting that!". He started laughing again. He became aware Schnauzer was fixing him with a chilly stare. So he trotted up to the net, waving him over. Schnauzer stood his ground, torn between distaste and curiosity. In the end he succumbed to curiosity.
Weiner apologised fulsomely.
"I really can't help myself," he said.
He nodded towards the seats.
"Look over there."
There was a middle-aged lady in a front row seat, all girth, pink cardigan and floral dress. She wore an eye-catching hat from the last century but one: resplendent rather than fashion-conscious. Behind her a worried-looking Wall Street type was perspiring copiously. And behind him still sat a titanic, smartly suited professional with an expression of unnerving calm. They seemed mysteriously interconnected, like three slats in a set of blinds.
Here's the thing, Weiner explained, when he came on court the city boy stereotype had jeered at him. If Weiner won so much as a set, he'd pledged, he'd take the lady in the front row to the Ritz and, in his own words, give her the night of her life, no expense spared. Hell, he'd said, if Weiner won the match he'd go the whole hog and marry her!
"The thing is, every time I win a point, his face goes white. And right now it's positively Arctic. Meanwhile the smile on the lady's face just keeps on getting bigger and bigger. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen."
Schnauzer didn't reply; it wasn't his style. But he gave a curt nod that suggested a softening of his disapproval. The set resumed. Weiner couldn't reproduce the ace but ground out a series of effective ripostes to Schnauzer's returns of serve and stood on the threshold of his first set point. Without meaning to, he glanced over his shoulder. That was a mistake. The tableau of childlike happiness and open-mouthed horror just set him off again. Schnauzer followed his glance and thoughtfully examined the pair. He'd never been photographed smiling, and he wasn't now. But students of sporting snapshots would later claim on the slimmest of evidence that they'd detected a slight loosening at the corners of his lips. Either way when Weiner finally got his serve in he sent the ball back with little sense of aggression.
There followed a low-key exchange between the two, neither offering an opening nor pressing home an advantage. There was a feel of the warm-up to it all. Then, out of nowhere, Schnauzer sent up a lob. It rose in a sleepy arc and dropped within easy reach of Weiner's forehand.
What happened next was a Schnauzer's Lob Spotters' feast. Sightings of their choice shot had been thin on the ground for the past month or so, as rare as glimpses of a lesser spotted grebe in a salt marsh. Now they were dropping out of the sky like hailstones. Schnauzer ran through his repertoire. What he practised endlessly in private he now presented as an on court master class. Every variation of the lob was on display, all apart from one: the winning shot.
Weiner quickly entered into the spirit of things. He tapped the ball back to Schnauzer like a straight man feeding a headline comic his lines. He turned out to have a bit of a flair for entertainment himself, being something of a natural mime artist and tumbler. He shaded his eyes and squinted furiously into the sky, only to fall over backwards in open mouthed astonishment as the ball bounced in front of him, recovering instantly to pitch it back over the net. He filled the hiatus between hits by running on the spot, dropping to the ground to execute a series of rapid press-ups, yawning extravagantly and looking at an imaginary watch, blowing kisses to the lady in the floral dress and waving to the man in shirt sleeves.
The crowd lapped it all up. At first they'd felt they'd stumbled in on a private joke, but quickly warmed to Weiner's clowning. The TV commentator went silent, his head in his hands: his encyclopaedic grasp of precedents, stretching back to the Real Tennis tournaments of Henry VIII, were no help here. His purist soul was beyond outrage. His three million viewers saw things differently: they summoned their friends on social media and swelled their ranks by a further million.
The catcaller sweated it out, willing Schnauzer on to deliver the coup de grace. Their eyes locked briefly whilst Weiner was doing a handstand. He saw no salvation there. Eventually, as if deciding the man's agony had been drawn out beyond decency, Schnauzer dropped the ball into Weiner's doubles alley with enough back spin to land it in a tumbler of barley water.
"Whoops."
The court burst out with applause and cheers.
"Game and second set to Weiner. One set all. Final set."
The catcaller rose to leave but an immense hand clamped onto his shoulder and pushed him firmly back into his seat.
"Let's just settle down and see how this pans out," the hand's owner said, soft with menace. "And while we're waiting, why don't I tell you about a breach of promise case I once prosecuted. Warren vs. Carly. Nasty one, that. Things came to light about the defendant that would make a brothel keeper blush. An out-of-court settlement would have spared him so much."
The players were summoned to the high chair. The umpire did everything but wag his finger in their faces and give them detention after class. He reminded them of the traditions of the tournament, of the solemnness of the event. He invoked the names of previous winners, prematurely burying a few so they could turn in their graves. Weiner did his best to put the case for the defence. He outlined the details of the catcaller's wager. The umpire looked up and studied the unholy trinity in their seats. He sighed.
"Even so..." he concluded.
"Right you are," Weiner said. "Wrists considered slapped. Point taken."
The game resumed with a ferocity that surprised everyone. Neither player surrendered a point willingly. The ball boys flickered between shots over the grass, like impulses travelling the court's neural pathways. Snippets of gossip picked up at the base of the high chair entered the intelligence ecosystem of the ground staff. Spectators overheard them and fed the news to their social media friends. By the time the combatants were two games all, even the networks had picked up on the story. The camera started panning over to the three spectators after every shot. At three games all their identities had been uncovered.
The catcaller was something big in Equities. He'd just landed a massive contract for his firm, earning him a windfall bonus complete with free tickets to the final (one of which he'd sold). Hence his obnoxious high spirits. The man holding him to his seat was a popular (other than to the spouses of his clients) divorce lawyer. The woman was a spinster from the mid-west. A sister was tracked down, who revealed her sibling struggled with a private grief: in her early twenties she'd been dumped at the altar by a smooth-talking, no good son-of-a-b (pardon her French) who'd run off with her best friend and bridesmaid. Since then she'd lived a solitary life, taking in laundry for a living, and watching tennis on TV. The front seat at the final was her sixtieth birthday present to herself. She'd spent years saving up for it. The sister was thrilled to learn she would be going to the Ritz.
"It'll get her out of the house."
Clips of the interview went viral. Ritzes round the world, from as far away as Shanghai and Bahrain, offered to foot the bill for the unlikely pair's night of bliss. Several Vegas chapels jumped the gun and put up sponsorship deals should their services be required.
The Southerner's law firm was approached for a quote. They were chuffed at the publicity their man was bringing and happy to big him up: "He's the hottest thing on the circuit. You better believe it! He can squeeze the last barrel of Texas crude out of an oil baron merely for wishing the cleaning lady a good morning."
On court the contest was beginning to resemble a barroom brawl, a dour grunt-punctuated exchange in which style surrendered to simple slogging. Exhaustion was taking its toll. Schnauzer ground out his serve to reach six-five and leave Weiner fighting to stay in the match. Which is what he did, but at a cost. A last gasp slide along the cut grass set off his problem ankle. Six all. As he sat down before the decider, he could feel it throbbing dully. He sprayed it with anaesthetic. Then he pulled out a small, laminated photograph and gazed at it. A child's face, haloed by a pillow and with tubes radiating away from her, smiled back at him.
Beside him Schnauzer was staring fiercely into space as if the explanation for his recent behaviour could be found there. Insofar as he permitted himself any emotion at all, he was furious at himself. He'd thrown a game for the worst of reasons: frivolity. The tattooed, Mephistophelean image of the Yakuza loomed in his imagination. Your aim is to obliterate, not to beat.
"Time, please. Six sets all. Final set. Schnauzer to serve."
Weiner could only get his racket frame to the ball, knocking it sideways. But he held on to his own two serves. Then broke Schnauzer's with a deceptive touch of back spin. Schnauzer responded by taking a moment to still his mind. He'd spotted something, but wasn't immediately sure what. A scrap of intelligence. All he was sure of was that it excited him at a subconscious level, stirring his predatory soul. He felt the dragon and the skull guiding him. Then he glimpsed it. Weiner was limping. It was barely noticeable, but it was there. He was trying to keep his weight off his left foot.
The TV coverage was more interested in the planet's most famous pairing. A celebrity doctor ran a running commentary on the catcaller's pallid appearance. He'd noticed a tightening of his neck muscles too. Reduced blood flow and anxiety: not good for one's general health. He wouldn't be surprised if the man was on statins. Meanwhile the Maître d' of the nearest Ritz was chatting amiably with a fashion editor about what the lady might wear on her night out. Something free and flowing they agreed: nothing too ostentatious. And black always flattered the fuller frame. And since expense was no object maybe a string of Cartier pearls with matching earrings? Would a bejewelled tiara to top it all off be a bit much? They thought not. The Texan sat behind the two, mountainous and inscrutable, as if posing for a portrait on Mount Rushmore. Then, suddenly, shockingly, Schnauzer double faulted. 6-7 to Weiner.
Weiner to serve for the match.
Weiner bounced the ball a handful of times, trying to erase the enormity of the moment from his consciousness. He held his daughter's image in his mind's eye. Win this, and her medical bills were taken care of for at least the next few years. He'd been following the research, naturally: there were rumours of a promising, multidisciplinary treatment undergoing trials, even now. Keep her alive long enough, and there was every chance of curing her. If there was a time to land another ace, this was it. He stared down the throat of the court. He tossed the ball into the air then hit it with all his force.
It smashed into the net.
"Second serve."
He played safe. The ball landed just short of Schnauzer's service line. He sent it back low. The game became a metronomic, hypnotic exchange you couldn't drag your gaze from. "The moment of truth has arrived," the TV commentator said, rather unnecessarily. "It's make or break." Schnauzer increased the tempo, planting shots almost beyond Weiner's reach, getting him to twist awkwardly. He heard his sensei's words: Destroy one, terrify a thousand. Weiner drifted rightwards, stretching to block a half-volley. Schnauzer dropped a soft ball temptingly close to the net. It bounced once and hung in the air like a baited hook. Weiner dived after it. His left foot landed at an angle, taking his full weight. His ankle buckled. Pain streaked up his leg. As he collapsed onto the grass, he caught the ball and sent it spinning harmlessly towards Schnauzer.
Schnauzer lined it up for the perfect lob.
He sent it soaring upwards, far over Weiner's head. He experienced a moment of pure exultation. Body, mind and soul had come into perfect alignment: he knew within a millimetre where the ball would land. His life, he knew, would never be the same after this. He'd seen Weiner's collapse and had guessed the cause of his twisted features: he wouldn't be getting up again. It was over.
The ball hovered briefly in the air as if studying the crowd below. Then it plummeted earthwards, landing in the lap of the lady in the front row with a decisive 'plop'.
It nestled there like something freshly laid.
She was too startled to respond at first. Then she rose to her feet with a delighted yelp, clutching the ball to her chest where it was lost in the folds of her voluminous blouse. She aimed a beatific smile of gratitude towards Schnauzer. He dipped his head in acknowledgement. It seemed he'd be giving the dragon-and-skull tattoo, with all its bleak privileges, a miss.
"Game, set and match to Weiner," the umpire intoned. "And may I have the pleasure of announcing the engagement of..."
But his next words were blotted out by an immense cheer that erupted from the seats and reverberated throughout living rooms around the world for a long, long time to come.
Header image by Oliver Sjöström.