A View From the Edge of Significance

A look at what remains after the games.

A View from the Edge

The Coliseum is empty, and a gust of wind from the dark cloud above makes a shallow wave in the artificial turf. It runs to the far end of the field and disappears in the space at the end of the field. The lights are off. Every seat is empty, and no spectators watch what is unfolding in the arena.

A beam of moonlight scans the field through a hole in the cloud that is moving slowly across the sky. It reveals A ghost team running the length of the field.

Long-silent voices of fans from over half the last century erupt from the stands in a deafening roar.

Individual puffs of frozen breath are snatched from the air by the breeze.
A rush of brightly colored uniforms glows in the now-bright moonlight. Each player passes through the goalposts and disappears from whence they came.

Another team in blue-and-gold uniforms follows, then the colors of every team that has played on this field over the last fifty years.

The echoes of cheering fans from years past rise from the seats.

The sound follows the fleeting forms of the ones who played here as they fade into the space between the goalposts and disappear.

When the stadium's memory has passed in review, the scene returns to the silence of empty seats and the moaning of the wind.

I am left wondering at the spectacle of all the energy expended here over fifty years that accomplished nothing of importance that endured, only fleeting moments of entertainment now gone into the silence of time past. I think of Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing,” and the money spent on the construction of places like this the world over, and the money paid for tickets by millions every year, the outstanding results which could have happened, but never will, because of the cost of the spectacle, which has faded into the nothingness from which it sprung.

What is the significance of this waste of money and energy?