The Cards of Unknown Players: Digital Science Fiction Short Story (Ctrl Alt Delight) Read Online Free PDF

The Cards of Unknown Players by
Vincent L. Scarsella
     
     
     
    Of course, he did not find the slightest indication of Uqbar .
    - Jorge Luis Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
     
    I dozed and dreamed again that
Timothy was playing baseball.
    First, as a kid,
his present age, ten years old, the best kid on his team, a pitcher with a
fastball so mean, the other kids are scared to face him and always swing late. When
he isn’t pitching, Timothy plays short. An all-star, naturally. A .500 hitter. Runs
like the wind and is aggressive as hell. Reckless sometimes, too, a fierce
competitor who hates to lose.
    Suddenly, he is
older, almost a man, the star of his high school team, recruited by Arizona
State and after four wild years helping them to four national championships, he
is the first round draft choice of the New York Yankees. As a rookie shortstop,
he hits .327 and is named Rookie of the Year. The next season, he is named to
the All-Star team and the Yankees win the World Series for the first time in
seventeen years.
    But I know I must
be dreaming. It is impossible for him to do any of this.
    My son, Timothy,
cannot even walk.
     
    I woke up and
looked across at him. In his wheelchair, his head was cocked in a funny,
unnatural angle. There was drool on his chin. His hands shook as he sifted
through a pile of baseball cards at the table where his wheelchair had been
placed.
    “Dad?” he asked. His
voice, as always, was garbled, slow. “Who’s this?”
    After a yawn, I
sat up and squinted at the card in his outstretched hand.
    “Is it worth
anything?”
    I got up from the
sofa and took the card. It was a Topps, this year’s issue, depicting a
strapping kid with a confident grin by the name of Kevin Gleason. According to
the card, he pitched for the Yankees last year.
    The Yankees. My
team. But I had never heard of him, odd since the card reported that the kid
had posted some pretty respectable numbers last year, going 11-3 with a 2.17
ERA.
    Frowning, I
turned the card over a couple of times.
    “Kevin Gleason,”
I mumbled to myself while Timothy stared up at me, waiting. “Gleason.”
    But not a single
image of this rookie phenom came to mind, only the old, over-priced,
under-enthused, injury-prone wastes that had littered the mounds of Yankee
stadium last year, making for another dismal season. I couldn’t recall seeing
Gleason pitch even once, despite watching thirty or so Yankee games on TV last
summer. And he hadn’t pitched in a single game I had watched this year.
    “Dad?”
    “Never heard of
him,” I said, scowling at the card.
    Pointing to the
twenty or so other cards scattered before him on the floor, I asked Timothy where
they came from.
    “The new card
shop in the mall,” he said. “Mom took me there this afternoon.”
    I remembered that
Timmy had been off from the special school that day, teachers’ conference or
something. Beth had taken him shopping for an early birthday present.
    After putting
down the Gleason card, I asked him to hand me up a couple of the other cards
scattered before him. Except for some rookie who had played for the Atlanta
Braves at the end of last year, I recognized each of them. Only Kevin Gleason’s
name didn’t ring a bell.
    I retrieved the
sports section from today’s newspaper and spread it open to the baseball pages
on the table next to Tim. Gleason wasn’t listed in the boxscore of a game the
Yankees had lost to Cleveland last night. I had watched the end of that game on
TV and remembered, with a frustrated sigh, how they had blown a two-run lead in
the bottom of the ninth.
    I put down the
paper and went out to the garage. From the pile of newspapers in the recycling
bin, I sifted through a week’s worth of sports sections. Gleason wasn’t listed
in a single game there either.
    Back in the
living room, I retrieved the Gleason card from Timothy and stared at it for a
time. This kid, so cocky, and what numbers. Still, nothing registered.
    Frowning, I
mumbled to