The pink ball curled into the gutter again, as if it had ached with sorrow from their time apart. The group watched with pity as she turned around, revealing a smile.

Her walk back was the swagger of one who had bowled their twelfth strike. “I didn’t fall!” she said.

Marcus Benjamin Ray Bradley works at the University of Kentucky. He grew up in Perryville and now lives in Versailles, KY, with his wife and daughters. Other work is forthcoming in the pages of Chiron Review.