By JB Lowe

The sun is low and mean, casting long shadows across the busted asphalt. The hoop leans just slightly to the left, and the backboard is cracked but still standing. The rim—crooked, rusted—endures. The net’s long gone.

Score’s 20 to 20. This isn’t just a game. It’s ritual.
One-on-one. First to 21. No subs. No fans. No mercy. Just that final point.

He’s dribbling slow, deliberate. Palming the ball like it’s made of glass, watching me with that grin that says he’s got a trick loaded and ready to fire. The heat rolls off the blacktop in waves, warping the air between us.

We’re both drenched in sweat. My shirt is plastered to me. My legs are jelly. My hands feel numb. My knees—traitorous at best. But none of it matters.

This isn’t just a game. It’s the game. 

One-on-one. First to 21. For pride. For pain. For peace.

“You look tired,” he says.

“You look slow,” I shoot back.

He chuckles. Fakes left. Drives hard right.

I follow…. late. A step, maybe two. He’s at the rim. He goes up for the layup.

I launch.

Time slows. I feel my fingers brush leather…just enough. The ball kisses the backboard, spins off the rim.

He curses. I hit the ground hard, ribs jolting. The ball rolls free.

Still alive.

I scramble up, snag the ball, start dribbling. Left hand. Slow. My pulse is thunder. My legs ache.

He’s bent at the waist, hands on his knees, chest heaving. Still smiling.

We circle. Just the two of us. No fans. No music. Just breath and sneakers and the distant hum of the generator.

I drive left. He bites.

Step back. Rise.

“Don’t do it,” he says, voice low, pointing at me. He already knows.

I do it anyway.

The ball leaves my hand—perfect backspin, clean release, rising into the heat.

“YES—”

The ball hangs in the air—

“9-LINE INCOMING!”

—then the war called it down.

The voice rips across the compound, sharp and certain.

We freeze.

The ball bounces away into nothing. Forgotten.

The front gate opens. Headlights cut through the dust.

“Litters inbound!” someone yells.

Boots thunder past us.

He doesn’t speak. Neither do I.

We run.

Moments later, chaos meets us under the light of the trauma tent. It smells like blood and diesel and fear. The kind of fear that’s silent. 

Four patients. Two conscious. Two not. One missing half a leg. Another has a hole in his chest you could fit a clenched fist inside.

We’ve done this dance too many times.

I grab another tourniquet and cinch it tight, just above the one failing to hold. The blood pulses once…high and red…then halts like a switch was flipped. His eyes lock onto mine, wide and unblinking, pleading without sound.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I lie. My voice is calm. Steady. Practiced. 

My hands are already slick with someone else’s life.

Across from me, my opponent—my almost-vanquished foe—is cutting into someone’s chest, sliding a tube between collapsed lungs. His sleeves are still soaked from the game. He doesn’t even notice.

The game has changed. But it’s still about winning. 

“Get that line started!” I shout. “Bag’s dry. We need another unit, now!”

I look down the row of NATO litters at my 4 patients.

Someone vomits. Someone screams. Someone doesn’t make a sound at all.

And so it goes.

Hours later, when the last patient is loaded onto a bird bound for further stabilization and surgery, when the blood is rinsed off the floor and the adrenaline wears off, we sit outside the tent. Two overturned crates. One shared box of cigars.

The court is empty now. Just shadows. Just the rim, crooked in the dark.

“You missed,” he says, ember glowing at the end of his cigar.

I shrug. “Maybe.”

Smoke curls from my lips. “Hell of a shot, though.”

I think of the way the ball arced through the sky. The silence just before the shout. The weightlessness of the moment before the world called us back.

“We’ll never know,” he says.

And we won’t.

But maybe that’s okay.

Because when the world breaks open, when the screaming fades into routine, it’s the moments like these that matter. Moments of joy. Stolen, small, and sacred. The laughter, the game, the illusion of something normal—those are the true miracles.

Even if it only lasts to 20.

                                                               *   *   *

JB Lowe is a physician, veteran, and author whose fiction explores the intersections of trauma, duty, and what it means to survive. He served over two decades in the U.S. military as both a combat medic and emergency physician, deploying to multiple regions and working in both field hospitals and civilian trauma centers. His experience lends visceral authenticity to stories that examine moral injury, memory, and the quiet aftermath of war. He writes fiction under a pseudonym to maintain separation from his professional identity and continues to serve in the military.