(All week, Biscutball is telling you about what's happening at Corbin Smith Basketball Camp, a basketball camp where famous blogger Corbin Smith teaches you how to dunk. Here is day one's entry and day two's entry and day three's entry.)
It’s getting to be crunch time at the Corbin Smith Basketball Camp. We’ve got the kids going as hard as we can do prepare them for their dunks tomorrow. Not everyone can handle it: one young boy, Caleb, broke down and started doing fundamental chests pasts into the wall of the gym at the Vancouver Unitarian Universalist Church of Vancouver’s gym. It took a whole hour of my wife, Claudia Richards, tempting him away with some extra PureGreen Powder to separate him from his PassHole.
So when everyone left for their homes where they live with their mothers, I was ready to go home and hit the hay bed I sleep in. But while Claudia and I were getting all the basketballs into bags, I felt a dark presence slither up my spine.
“Claudia, did you notice that?”
“Huh? What, Corbin?” Claudia’s advanced education (She is a Professor of Political and Moral Philosophy at St. Martin’s College in Lacey, WA, unlike myself, a self taught blogger who writes “From the gut” on the topic of Basketball) has made her less in tune to the world of spirits and spooks, the way I am.
“Clauida, close your eyes and just feel.”
Claudia closed her eyes like I suggested. “Having closed my eyes and shed my substantial education, I now feel what you feel: A ghostly presence in this room!”
A spectral voice revealed itself.
“Ooooohhhhh DuuuuUUUUUuuuuuunnnkkkk”
Claudia and I looked around the room. Left. Right. Forward. Claudia pointed
“Look, Corbin!”
And there he was: A young boy, not but 12 years old, wearing a red and blue basketball uniform and a pair of New Balance basketball shoes. His eyes were filled with sadness, like a very sad dog.
“Claudia, I think that boy is a ghost!”
“What should we do, Corbin?”
“Well, Claudia, I know that this knowledge has been educated out of you, but the only way to get rid of a ghost is to release him from his lingering attachments to this world so he can move on to the wheel of reincarnation. We should figure out what’s wrong!” I cleared my throat and spoke gently, as to not scare him off; “Young man! What is your name?”
“Corbin,” whispered Claudia, “why are you asking him what his name is?”
“Because, not everyone is an academic in academia, where everyone just knows everyone, I am trying to make him feel comfortable.”
“Myyyyy naaaaammmmmeee” said the ghost, his voice high pitched and very spooky, “Iiiiisssss Jeeeeeef”
“Why are you here, Jeff? What keeps you attached to this world?”
“I waaaaaannnttt toooooo leeeeeaaaaarrrnn hooooow tooooo duuuuuuunk”
“Well, Jeff, I think maybe it’s a little late for that…”
The lights turned on and off. The room filled with bad juju.
“Oh, no, Claudia, he’s turning into an evil spirit, what should I do?”
“I think I learned about this in my education: you need to give the aggressor what he wants and he will become more calm. Let me try!” Claudia cleared her throat, “Jeff, honey, We can help you learn how to dunk. We have a foolproof system that anyone can use to learn how to dunk!”
“I’ve heard that before!” Bellowed Jeff, the lights still turning on and off and in addition to that a table started flying in the air that I dodged using my very good reflexes, “That’s what Coach Meyers told me before the accident!”
“Wait a minute,” I said to Claudia “Coach Paul Meyers!”
“Oh my god, Paul Meyers! That coach that claims he can teach anyone to dunk a basketball!”
“That guy is a quack! He uses Whey based protein shakes with powder taken from exploited cows! It gives you some big bounce, but not all the big bounce you need, since whey protein isn’t the same density as human muscle! It works once, then the kids get lumpyleg and can’t get the same big bounce ever again. Not like me, I use PureGreen protein shakes, which have the same density as human muscle!”
“Jeff,” I said, “What happened to you! Tell us, so we can help you!”
The room was returned to a normal state, except all the basketball that we put in the bags were scattered around so we would have to pick them up again even after this really super hard day. “I got the worst case of Lumpyleg ever and I died from it. It was tragic and sad, but I just know that if I could just dunk a basketball, everything would be better”
I knew what I had to do. “Wait here with him Claudia, I need to go into the Social Justice library for a second.” I picked up a glass of PureGreen protein shake and headed into the library while I was on my way out I heard Claudia say “So are you interested in Politics and Morality?”
I went to the section of the Library where the members of the Unitarian Church keep the wands. I found one labeled TRANSMUTATION. I used it to turn the shake into a half-real-half-ghost shake that I could serve to Jeff. I went back into the gym, “Yeah, I would say that’s definitely one of my favorite morals, too; oh, hi Corbin, Jeff and I were talking about...”
“Jeff!” I interrupted my wife, which was rude and I apoligised for it over dinner, “drink this! It will temporarily bring you back to the physical world AND give your legs the big bounce they need to slam a basketball home!” Jeff drank it, and immediately manifested onto our plain of existence. I handed him a basketball. “Jeff, you have everything you need. Now take it straight to the hole.”
Jeff held the ball in his hands. He looked the the rim, and shed one tear. He looked at me and Claudia. “Thank you so much, Coach.” He took a dribble. Then another. Then another. He lept in the air with the ball in his palm. He wound his arm back. Then he threw it at the rim, and rammed it straight into the hoop while letting out a lusty “YEEEEEAAAHHH!” Then Jeff’s entire being evaporated into thin air, on its way to the wheel of reincarnation.
The dunk reverberated in my and Claudia’s hearts forever. Jeff is somewhere else now: maybe he’s a rabbit, or an elephant. I like to believe that he’s become a kangaroo, so that he can spend a whole life with the big bounce he needs to dunk a basketball.
