Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Pierce (06/05/25)
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TITLE: Ouch | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
06/06/25 -
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The abandoned figure lurched from his daze. The reek of sweat, turf, and mustard filtered into his senses as he chewed. ‘Two to go.’ His fingers were thick as the bratwursts that had been lying prostrate before him. His massive legs spread wide and his stomach stretched the mesh of the maroon jersey and the number 77 that adorned his chest. He wiped absent-mindedly at the grease stains and the drop of ketchup near his bulging belly.
He pushed off the bench and looked around. Eight hotdogs disappeared and were inhaled without effort. The bites on the last one had grown tedious, mechanical, laborious. If only he could put as much energy into manhandling the ball.
The piercing voice grew louder. “Go, Jackie Boy.” The cheerleader was using a megaphone now. None of it would have been so bad if the slim,
trim, figure hadn’t been his sister.
How had she survived the loss of dad in the car accident? While she had poured her grief and angst into working out for hours every day, he had eaten his loss and pain. He turned his back on the temptation and felt the piercing sensation again.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Miss Avery, his Sunday School teacher, had said. There was no doubting her presence if he dared to look up into the masses. She had told him that he would be pierced. “God’s going to get hold of you, boy,” she’d said. “Listen to the piercing. His word says that “it is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates and pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” She had poked him right in the sternum as if her finger was the sword.
He felt the piercing now, sitting alone on the sidelines. The slicing exposed his shame, guilt, fear, and longing for love. The coaches had whispered their pity and left him to his own sorrow. They didn’t need a six-foot-five gorilla weighing down the mood of everyone.
The piercing wasn’t really about hotdogs. It was something more. Something about carrying his own burdens when Jesus had called him to hand them over. There had been no escaping. “You look weary,” Miss Avery had said. “Jesus has a verse for that. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
Rest seemed a million miles away. “You can’t hide your grief behind food, applause, or muscle,” Miss Avery had said.
“I gotta be strong for mom, for the team, for my sister,” he’d said. “The verses you give me are fine, Miss Avery, but I’m the man in my family now.”
He’d shuffled away then, head heavy, but the verses hadn’t left him alone. Even at night. He reached for some Gator Aid and shook his head. The two squads were battling it out under the blistering sun and there was no avoiding his reality. The coach’s piercing whistle continued to emit a call he couldn’t respond to.
He turned, wrapped the last two franks in tin foil and left them at the end of the bench. “Jesus, I feel it,” he said. “Your word is piercing me, just like Miss Avery said it would. I’ve been trying to do it on my own and I can’t. I don’t know why you took my daddy, but I’m going to need you now.”
His sister, the cheerleader, must have seen something as he took a step toward the field because she smiled and nodded. “Go, Jackie Boy!” she yelled again, waving her pom poms.
The coach looked his way, eyebrows furrowing. Jackie nodded and squared his shoulders. “Jesus, I need more grace than before. I need your forgiveness. I know you were pierced to take on my sins and I know you’ve been piercing me with your word. I’m in a battle that’s bigger than me. It’s all up to you.”
As a whistle sounded and play halted, he pushed himself into a slow jog onto the field. As he washed away the buzz in the crowd, one more piercing voice sounded. “Go, Jackie Boy!.”
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