The Golfball Anecdote

It was half way through July in 2019 when a storm broke out that wouldn't subside for the next three weeks. The next three weeks were self-isolation before self-isolation; melancholy, loneliness, and boredom were the three rulers of the house and all I cared about was finding creative ways to avoid studying for mid-years.

This avoidance of work was another form of productivity at first; learning new recipes, doing extra housework, writing some stories that I would never show anyone. It quickly turned into a little less productivity, with me sitting down holding my bass for hours, playing two or three notes every thirty minutes then checking my phone.

By the end of the first week my creativity had run dry and I began spending more time in bed than out of it, feeling a pang of guilt every time I looked at my books, now developing a thin layer of dust. My denial of studying went deep enough to avoid using my computer at all so I did not need to go near my textbooks, I realised this was a problem when I began personifying them. The 5 of them representing their own version of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, myself avoiding them like the plague or death itself.

On the eighth day I stopped making excuses and sat in my bed in shame, resigned to the fact that this is how it would be, until the rain was over at least, right?

The ninth day was the one I was most prepared for. Mentally ready to sit in bed all day and handle the guilt later that night, but the textbooks found a way, they always seemed to outsmart me. This day brought Conquest, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. At midday my girlfriend dumped me over text. I opened the textbooks for the first time in nine days and studied for an hour, then closed them and had my first cigarette in nine months.

Going to bed that night, I didn't feel guilty for another smoke, I stopped for her, after all.

The tenth day I spent in my books, a full day of superficial study didn't even begin to make up for the time I had lost, but often this fake study was to trick myself into feeling like I had done work; today it did it's job. That's when the Horseman of Famine struck, I hadn't eaten for over thirty-six hours, and out of some general protest I went longer in my fast, I started eating three meals a day for her, after all.

On the eleventh day I ate breakfast, binged Samurai Champloo, and compared myself to Jean, after all my pain was just as great as his, right?

But hold on, isn't this called the Golfball Anecdote? Where's the golfball, where's the anecdote? Well,

On the twelfth day, I went outside. Consumed by the same melancholy that makes you sit in the sun on a lazy day for hours, I walked into the rain. My feet unconsciously carried me up the hill behind my house and into the forest behind that. With rain all over my face I let myself cry for the first time in nine months, I stopped doing it around people for her, after all.

I walked more than I had for the last few weeks combined, with a conviction more like I was running from something instead of going somewhere.

I was further in than I had ever been before, and a little off the beaten track. The weeks of storming had turned the ground into an inconsistent slush of dirt, foliage and animal droppings, and I'd resigned to the fact my shoes were now a vintage brown. It didn't matter, she bought me these shoes after all.

At first I thought it could have been far off thunder or a lightning bolt. Then there was another thwack, a pause, then another and another; too consistent to be thunder or lightning.

With rain coming down harder than ever I was forced into looking at the ground, which is maybe why I saw it. Wedged between two rocks and half buried underneath running mud and rain, like it was purposefully put there to be hidden, a golfball. For the first time the whole walk I stopped walking, bent down, and used more effort than I should have to yank it from between the two rocks. I fell backwards and covered myself in mud, choosing to sit there for however many minutes, letting the rain hit my face like a whip. The whole time I held on hard to the golfball.

By the time I got up the thwacks hadn't stopped, and they all came from the same direction. I followed the noise to a small house deep in the forest, where the thwacks were now their loudest.

In an open backyard was a man in full golf gear using a driver to plant balls deep into the forest. Next to him was a full set of clubs, and he himself was wearing a golf cap and glove, complete with a polo and shorts, but remarkably more wet that they'd normally be.

I went and asked if the ball was his, as if it could be anyone else's. He gave me a sincere and warm smile, said it was and thanked. Almost as soon as I gave it back, he tee'd it up and sent it back into the forest. He turned and thanked me again, I assured him it was no trouble and with that left. Inexplicably I had reached the end of my walk, and decided it was time to head back, the textbooks were waiting, after all.

I got back, headed to my room, turned on the heater, stripped off all my clothes and studied hard for hours.

Sitting there completely naked, I worked better and harder than I had in months. I was with her for those months, after all.