Russ gave us a factual breakdown of the Atlantic Division, and I'll be bringing you the stories of the Atlantic Division. Langston and I did a couple of these last Spring and thought we'd have another go at it, so here we have the Rajon Rondo story, as inspired by his departure from the US national team this summer:
The night before he was scheduled to go to the moon Rajon Rondo dreamed he was sharpening knives, outside a carnival tent. After he finished shaping each blade, he would polish it with a blue and white basketball jersey, as a dream catcher swayed over his head like a nylon net underneath an orange rim.
Blades of grass bent over in submission to the wind that whistled through the fairgrounds like the sharp shrill of sprints inside a gymnasium, reducing themselves in height to the call of an unseen coach. Rondo did not bend. He did not even hear the whistle. He did not lay down before it, or go sprinting towards the horizon to stay in front of it, but flicked the knife he was polishing into the ground, where it stood defiantly, against the wind, like a steel blade of grass, or a rocket returning from space, like a spear into the ocean's womb. Everything for Rondo was about the sea. He was probably the first astronaut who planned on braving the dangers of outer space in order to fall into the ocean's open arms.
When Rondo was young, one of his elementary school teachers showed his class a film strip made up of Jacques Cousteau's deep sea photography. Most of the images were bright and colorful; barrier reefs exploding like underwater fireworks. The teacher asked the class to write a story about one of the pictures, so Rondo started brainstorming, because, as all elementary students learn, ideas are born out of thunder and lightning inside the head. The clouds in Rondo's head opened up a country, like Atlantis, that was submerged underwater but wasn't supposed to be. According to Rondo's imaginary storm, this city was supposed to be up in the sky for all to see, so the people gathered up all the fireworks they could find and strapped them to the buildings and then they sat on the rooftops and lit the fuses with sparks from the click of a crab's claw, blasting the city towards the surface, into the light. The reefs and underwater plants are what's left of those blast off explosions that Rondo believed painted the ocean floor.
When Rondo got his story back from his teacher, he read the following question, in red ink:
How can a spark happen underwater?
Rondo was crushed, but only two tears rolled down his cheek, leaving an ocean of salt water to submerge the city of his heart that lay drowning behind his eyelids.
When morning came, Rondo opened his eyes and found himself lying in the middle of his bedroom floor, and the dream catcher that usually hung above the headboard was in pieces on the hardwood. In his hand was a knife; strands of rainbow yarn clinging to it like eyelashes.
An extended version of this story can be found in the echapbook we put out through Deckfight Press. The link is here.
Photo Credits: Langston did all the work on those("Rondo the Magnificent," "Jacques Courondo," and "Bostronaut," so give him his due.
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