Deadline

I wanted to be a sport reporter. I wanted to report on sport. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Rhymes a little. “Mahir Gowda, Sport Reporter.” I’d watch the cricket matches and the obstacle courses and the stockcar races, and I’d write pithy little articles about them and make buckets of money, buy a huge house somewhere on the outskirts of London, and raise a family big enough to field a cricket team of my own.

Enter Georgia Carolyn Mason. She knew I’d never be happy reporting on sporting events and the lives of professional athletes. “The news is in yur blood”: That’s what she said to me, and she hounded me until I agreed to give it a shot. A year later, when she struck out on her own, she hired me. She was right too much of the time. She was right about me, and about what I was meant to do.

I have to say as I rather wish that she’d been wrong.

—From Fish and Clips, the blog of Mahir Gowda, June 21, 2041