3:33 Sports Short #51 // First It Corrupts You Then It Claims To Have The Cure by Andrea Lewis

In my seat on the third base line I am surrounded by children. I want to save them but it’s too late. They’ve already seen the field. They’ve already watched the first inning and a half. Some are so far gone they’re keeping score. Is any of this my fault?

Say the runner on first takes off with the pitch. Is it my fault if this move alone creates a joy bordering on depravity? Say the hitter hits the ball behind the runner into right and the runner makes it all the way to third and depravity becomes a gulf of immorality. We were all innocent when we came through the turnstiles. 

But we organized our pain onto this green lawn. We squandered fine night air on suffering. We pushed children into wickedness. Now we want the runner to come home. We want the beauty that corrupted us to bring salvation. 

Andrea Lewis’s fiction and essays have appeared in Cutthroat, Catamaran Literary Reader, and (yay!) Prairie Schooner (Spring 2015), among others. Two of her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington State and she is a founding member of Richard Hugo House, a place for writers in Seattle.”