Running Hot by Kat Meads

At the softball game, the mothers band together, the fathers together. It’s tradition. No one violates tradition, unless the spillover of a generous thigh muzzying the division can be counted. Because any evidence of equality on this planet is noteworthy, of note: the parental fans cheer their softball playing daughters as avidly as their hardball playing sons. If their children aren’t little athletes, who and what are they? The women wear baseball caps or straw hats. The men wear baseball caps or go bareheaded, bald spots glistening. Either side of the great divide features Bermuda shorts, exposer of freckles, chigger bites, the occasional ripening varicose vein. The heat of the day persists, a discomfort that, even though expected, plays on the nerves of one and all. In the run-up to the first pitch, the mothers gossip; the fathers grunt. Their progeny, a mix of tiny sprites and lanky quick growers, smack gum and pass the time practicing cartwheels. Strikeouts and missed catches sully spirits, turning the day (and game) into a hot, dull test of patience. The mothers take to sighing; the fathers struggle to stay awake. Innings come and go until—just like that!—the unpopular umpire inadvertently whacks a young one on the noggin making an unpopular call. Lickety-split the field is aswarm with parents, their softballer children chanting: “Grab him, Mom!” “Show him who means business, Dad!” Really quite the bruhaha. At the bar, the umpire’s usually sympathetic friends doubt his lurid description of running for his life, whereupon the ump loses it completely, de-friending the lot. To react is to overreact say the pundits. Who are we to argue?

Kat Meads's recent flash has appeared in Maudlin House, Gone Lawn, FEED, Your Impossible Voice, A-Minor and elsewhere. Her newest title, While Visiting Babette, is forthcoming in 2025. She lives in California. (katmeads.com)