On the Edge of the List

He opened his locker and took out the old photograph from the very bottom. On the back, in black marker, was a sentence he had written when he was seventeen: I will score at the World Cup. The handwriting was loud, childish, and arrogant. Mason looked at it for a long time, then placed the photograph back in the locker. Outside the window, Dallas stretched wide under the night. The city lights in the distance looked like a stadium waiting to ignite. The World Cup had not begun. But the war had already arrived.