Rain Delayed: The Writing Prompt, Part I

It started off as a normal day for Trevor Rosenthal. He woke up a little earlier than usual to the sound of his young daughter crying.

"I will check her," he says to his partially awoken wife. Trevor is a good father like that.

He walks across the hall and into her room and soothes his child, swaying back and forth and speaking to her in soft, hushed tones. The child is calmed very quickly. He lays the young babe back into her crib and quietly exits the room. Instead of going back to bed, Trevor decides to make some breakfast - an omelet was sounding superb at the moment. He gathers the ingredients from the refrigerator and starts chopping his vegetables. With his prep work done, Trevor remembers to collect the mail from the box on the front porch before he continued. Trevor is always remembering things in the middle of other tasks. He heads out to the front porch - that is when he notices it.

There is a strange package by the door.

The package is on the small side, maybe about the size of The Half Blood Prince and is wrapped in brown parchment. He turns it over in his hands, inspecting it closely. There is no return address. There is no address at all. This package was not sent through the US postal system. Someone had hand delivered it. Trevor shruggs, brings it inside, and puts it in his backpack, unopened. He has an omelet to cook.

He arrives at the ballpark and follows his normal routine. He does his workouts, goes over some scouting reports, and pulls his daily prank on Randy Choate. Today he decides to leave a candy wrapper in Choate's locker. He puts on his uniform and gets ready for the game. It is one of those tight, high scoring games, with the pitchers almost completely ineffective, and the offenses exploding for run after run. The game is tied, and Rosey is called in to pitch the top of the ninth. All is going well but then, a base hit, then a double. The Cardinals find themselves down by one and do not come back to win. The game is over - Rosey blew the save.

The unusual day started out so good, and now it totally sucked. After he speaks with the media, he angrily starts shoving items into his backpack. He is packing things so quickly he almost doesn't see the brown package he put in there this morning. Annoyed and confused, the athlete tears it open impatiently. He takes the lid off the box, picks up the note inside and reads:

Trevor,

Your velocity has been down. Your location has at times betrayed you. But all is not lost - the magic is still there, but there must be a sacrifice.

You know what to do.

Rosey comes out a week later to pick up his first save since opening the package. He gets four outs with two strikeouts and no hits and hit 99 mph on the gun. His hair is no longer long, but newly cut.

The End.