Jack walked, with his usual purposeful stride, to home plate. In the seats behind first base was a girl with short blonde hair, & legs that went on forever, despite the fact that she was barely 5 ft. tall. She was wearing a yellow polka-dot sun dress, & twirling a daisy between her slender hands. Their eyes met. Jack tipped his cap, reflexively. Her face broke into a broad grin.
A voice boomed from the bench, "C'mon Jackson, show 'em what you can do!" It was his big brother, Stan, the second baseman. The brothers worked & played for Majestic Shipping co., in the N.Y.C. Industrial League. They were facing their archrivals, the Green Coffee Trade.
As Jack stepped into the batter's box, his team was behind, 3-1, with runners on first & third, in the bottom of the 7th. Jack told himself " Set up about a step further off the plate, & half a step further back in the box." As he took up his slightly different position, Jack reminded himself, "Don't dig in. Don't draw their attention to where your feet are!" The first pitch was a curveball. Jack barely deigned to glance at it, as it scuttled in the dirt, for Ball1. Next, Jack saw a flash of white. His arms flew, with a life of their own. Hips turn. Left foot slides forward, over the rugged terrain of the batter's box. The crack of the bat is like a rifle shot, as Jack takes off running, & then jogging.
Jack blinks, & looks down on a body vastly different from the young, muscled one that did battle with the Green Coffee trade, so many years ago. A blonde girl in red scrubs, with sad blue eyes is looking down at a machine. "CLEAR" shouts a voice, as Jack sees his body slammed by the electrical current. No change is registered on the machines - nothing but the keening of the alarm that announced his last heartbeat.
Jack felt a smile come to the lips he no longer had. "My last at bat was a homerun!" The blonde girl handed him the daisy, & they walked, hand in hand, into the light.