"The Ball That Never Returned"- by Angie Hu
- Teen Writing
- Nov 9
- 2 min read
The house is still and the streetlamp flickers outside the window. Eli turns his body left and right, kicking the blanket up and down trying to ease himself. It’s the middle of fall and the leaves are turning color. He tightly shuts his eyes with his mind loud with thoughts flying by. He glances over at the calendar, circles two words in a big red pen. Tryouts tomorrow. He takes a deep breath and pulls on the lamp string, illuminating the whole room.
He stands and walks over to his desk. And on his desk, the baseball rests—the smooth leather with dirt in between the grooves. He stares for a second then picks the ball upHe slumps back onto his bed and remembers playing catch with his father. Eli’s father is now standing there in his green shirt with a stain on the right shoulder, smiling with that mole hidden in his dimple. He stands there ready to catch the ball with the glove in his hand. Eli throws a fast one at the empty spot on his wall between the door and the mirror, and imagines his father throwing it back. The ball bounces back into Eli's perfectly cupped hand.
Mistakes mean you're trying, don’t beat yourself up, kid.
You had the right thought and that’s something.
The baseball now back in Eli’s hands, the boy stares for a moment.
His father is in the stands now, Eli remembers, his smile bigger than any others, hands high in the air.
He begins to pick up speed, each thud echoing in the walls. Then, all the sudden, something shatters. Eli looks over and sees his mirror laying there with glass in pieces. For a moment it's quiet again. Eli stands and steps one foot over the other over and picks up the ball and begins to gather each piece of glass, one by one. He puts them back together in the framework of the mirror. When most of the pieces are set back in, Eli stares at himself—no, a version of himself, now with an accentuated dimple—and smiles. He leans the frame against the wall where it once stood.
Eli walks to the window and opens it so that cold air rushes into the stale room and through his lungs making his nose burn. He steps out, barefoot, on the street under the glow of the streetlamp. He brings his arm up and launches the ball as hard as he could into the darkness.
He is still and waits. For a second, he thinks the ball will come back. But instead there is nothing. Only Eli, the streetlamp, and, inside now, a broken mirror.
