Antelope Summer + Europe today: rolling

June is flash fiction month in New Zealand, and in celebration of this, the Aotearoa Affair invited authors to send their stories for a "Flash Across Borders". This is mine, the memory of a summer that moved across borders. All 26 stories + reflections on flash are now online at Flash Across Borders.  
*



Antelope Summer

It was the summer of vuvuzelas. The ball rolled on and on, down there in the South of Africa, between all those countries of the world. Huge screens glowed in the night, green reflections of success and failure.

Then suddenly, it was over. The TV channels returned to their normal daily and weekly schedules. The heat kept lingering, though. It turned lawns into patches of prairie: yellow and stubby the grass stood, as if waiting for antelopes and hyenas. Still hesitant, you went, and bought one of the last vuvuzelas on sale, and we finally learned to do the rain dance.

*


meanwhile, in Europe today, the countdown is running:
at 5 pm the europan soccer championships will start, the first match is Portugal vs. Greece. it will be a weird championship - the ball rolling while the prime ministers keep trying to save the Euro from tumbling. 21st century reality, it is. 

*

related links:
- more on the Euro crisis in this blog: Europe, Quo Vadis?
- Antelope Summer was first published in Dog Days of Summer 2010