Diamonds Flowing from my Eyes

By Nika

"Nika, get your face out of the dirt, and THROW the ball!" raged my coach. I jerked my head up as if an imaginary hand grasped my chin and forcefully pulled me up, to see angry, red beet faces yelling to look behind me.

I turned around and saw the ball rolling farther down the endless looking field. Once I clicked out of my daze, I ran to the ball, but my friend cut me off and got it first! I felt like I let the team down, and I knew that I had a lecture coming.

The gloomy game finally ended; we definitely lost. My coach stomped over to me, "You will never, ever, ever be in the infield again! This is baseball, not some cockamamie game with rules you make up along with the game. What were you doing? Well, Let me tell you. We don't play baseball by sticking our heads as close as possible to the dirt, trying to communicate with bugs."

Watching my coach fume on and on, with spittle spraying all over on his own shirt, fists looking like they are forced to stay on the side of his body is not entertaining. I focused on the trees behind him, and think "What was I doing?" I was tracing a mindless picture in the ground, hoping the ball would not come to me, because I was not any good and was scared of the ball.

I saw my parent's car and left, not caring what else my coach had to say. When I got home, the silence seeped in like smoke leaking from a room in a fire. I ate my dinner, and crawled to bed.

My mom got on the phone with my outraged coach, and started saying how it was not right of him to yell at me the way he did. The angry-sad feeling came stomping right back to me. I started crying, confused with all my mixed emotions, and everything became a swirling dizzy blur.

I remember fluttering my eyes open, and looking in the mirror. I saw diamonds glittering in the moonlight, flowing from my eyes and soaking my pillow.

From that moment on, I felt that all coaches would be rude and intimidating. So I was scared to ever be in a team again, but finally at the age of twelve I joined the swim team. The coach was rude and prejudice but in a different way. That is another story, and maybe one day I may be able to tell it to you.