A Crazy Basketball Story in Outer Space

Growing up is hard enough for martians in the inner city ghettos of Palazzingas. But for Toodles, it was especially hard. He was born with a rare genetic deformation that caused him to be severely premature at birth. Most martians receive enough injections of silver to allow them to grow up to be at least seven feet tall, but Toodles' parents were unable to harvest enough silver that cold year of 2375.

Anyways, Toodles had to play the hand he was dealt. Here he was, the shortest martian in Palazzingas by far, at only three feet three inches. At school all the other martians joked about his stature and called him names. Toodles was now a fully grown teenager, and life was becoming bleak. He wouldn't have a growth spurt, it was officially over.

Toodles liked to go out at night, when nobody was awake, and just stare out into the sky, admiring the shooting stars. He loved to predict the path of the flying streams of light. He would pick out a star that was about 30 degrees away using his split-nanosecond thinking skills and guess that this star would get "hit" by the meteor. Hours would pass as Toodles played this game.

School was torture for Toodles, though. Not only would he get shoved around by other martians because he was hard to see and because bullies found him an easy target, but teachers generally did not show Toodles enough respect. Coaches were the worst, though. They never let him play basketball and relegated him to retrieving the blowfish and launching it back to the normal martians.

You see, Toodles was gifted in martian basketball, but only two of his friends recognized his skills. Zwiftas and Puzzatruzzas were their names, and they were attracted to Toodles' sardonic sense of humor and his intelligence. It was a blessing he had those friends. They were normal martians who were 7'4" and 6'9" and they both were the only support group Toodles had. They both helped Toodles look forward and keep living. You see, for a martian who is depressed, getting away from it all and living a life of lethargic escapism is only a second away. There is an electric pipeline that scientists and mobos - martian xenon addicts who lost their brains - use to get to the intensely cold icecaps on the south pole. There they become incredibly mellow and totally frozen unless they wear special suits. Although the martian government has tried to crack down on xenon use, 37% of martians are now stuck on the south pole, looking out into the galaxy with dumb eyes in a perpetual coma.

And so it was that Toodles passed his days with struggles and a sense of lassitude. He gave up on his studies and just burned time. One day things really got bad, however. While walking in the hallways at school Toodles was very sluggish because he had stayed up late the night before killing Zurgloodles, which are insects shaped like marbles filled with jelly. He was sleepily walking when he accidentally lost consciousness for a millisecond because he pressed on his horizontal-velocity-valve switch. He bumped into Zumratazuva, the girflriend of Zwakinooflurg. Zumratazuva fell down with a scream that stopped all the martians in their tracks. Zwakinooflurg gave Toodles an icy cold look and started to grind his teeth. He uttered a martian expletive and grabbed Toodles by the neck with a quick thrust of his nine foot arms. He was right about to break Toodles' bones when an administrative at the school popped in and stopped Zwakinooflurg half-heartedly.

"Now what is going on here," the lanky old martian asked. Zwakinooflurg immediately pointed at Toodles and said, "Toodles just rammed into her and was right about to run away, when I caught him."

Toodles tried to defend himself but it was in vain as the martinet quickly said, "Is that so? Oh what a little coward we have here then. Come with me Toodles."

"I swear to you it's not true! I accidentally activitated my thrusters and I was...," Toodles was rudely cut off with a push by the administrator. "No you don't, just shut up you rascal. How dare you assault the king and queen of martian pillow fighting in molten tin?"

And so Toodles spent one day of school in the underground suspension center, where martians labored for silver in a mine seven kilometers below the surface. It gave Toodles much despair and anger in the first half of the day, as he replayed the activities. He was mired in regrets until a fellow martian girl from his school caught him cursing quietly with regret. She told him quietly, "You don't have to let the past haunt you like this. And you can't change anything except your behavior and your own habits and yes, even thoughts. By the way, have some Silicon candies," she said, holding out some.

Toodles looked at her, feeling a sense of confusion mixed with hope. "But what do you mean?" He accepted the candy, and stored some in his pouch. "Look at how they treat me at school? Do you think I'll ever even get a chance to join a basketball game, for example? I know I'll never make it to the MBA. Unless MBA also stands for Martian Bozo Association. I know I'll never be an administrator... "

She looked at Toodles and calmy said, "Don't talk like that. Don't you see that you're letting others have an evil power over you? They're making you feel bad and you're being bad for them. By the way, look up that Earthling movie star Rocky - some Earthlings actually do say logical things once in a while, so see it, OK?"

Toodles heard a ring of truth to her words and was quiet now. It pained him to hear such words, but it was a pain he felt soothed him inside, deep inside. It hurt his intellect to hear it but it soothed him inside. He looked at the mine wall and made a mental note of "Rocky' and then smiled at her gently. She reciprocated and then he said, "I see what you mean... it's true, I need to prove to myself that I am unique and capable of good." She nodded slowly, and then the underground alarm sounded for lunch. A friend of hers came and they went their separate ways.

Days passed, and Toodles began to see himself differently. He installed new computers in his room, studied more, and started to exercise. He scanned wireless data waves coming from Earth to find out about Rocky, who was really the so-called Sylvester Stallone . He stumbled upon him in the "Hollywood Movies" section and watched a clip of a movie called "Rocky Balboa." He had to translate the Earthling-speak into martian. He found a match in the motivational speech to his son, which was played by someone with the martian-sounding name of Milo Ventimiglia.

Rocky told his son: "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!"

Toodles took Rocky's message to heart. He usually would have dismissed anything an Earthling said, but they seemed to make up for their lack of brainpower with some wisdom and emotional strength. He decided he would work to become a better basketball player. He knew that if he could find a long enough zonake he could install a hoop right outside his dwelling. He looked and looked, and finally found a 17 foot zonake curled into a ball near a cave by his home. He tamed it with some copper tablets injected into its lungs and set it up in just two hours. For a net he quickly dangled some hair he had obtained from a so-called "dog" he had found while on a space vacation once.

He practiced intensely during all his free time. He only played basketball and read for school. Nothing else. Minimal attention was paid to dress and luxury and obtaining platinum, the local currency. He even sacrificed his habit of eating lots of quartz. He only wanted to become a better shooter.

Toodles learned that to overcome his lower height he would need to shoot very high and very fast. And so as the days slowly passed Toodles developed some tricks. He learned how to increase his jumping through special exercises that strengthened his thrusters. It was difficult but he did it consistently. Days passed and he waited patiently.

Finally, one day came at school when there was a dearth of martians because of sickness that reportedly came from Saturn. The martians playing basketball were just barely enough, and Toodles tried to get in but was rebuffed. He watched them play and felt annoyed, but then one of the martian players suffered a severe blow from a wayward elbow. After it was evident he couldn't play, the coach overseeing said, "Well looks like you guys will have to pick up Toodles, even though it will mean you guys lose."

Inside him Toodles felt his heart pound, but then breathed a long breath and calmed. On the opposing team was Zwakinooflurg, the one who lied about him in the hallway. A motivation for revenge swept upon Toodles. He knew he had to play with equanimity though, and forget about Zwakinooflurg. He remembered the stars for a moment, felt a sense of peace, and decided to play hard. At first no one passed to him, and the ball was hard to get. But finally a ball bounced off the zonakes tail in such a way that it landed in Toodle's hands. He paused in disbelief for a split second and then threw the blowfish up with a high arc toward the rim. The blowfish bounced off the back, then the front, and then teetered into the hoop. Toodles felt a huge wave of joy come over him. His teammates looked at him and couldn't believe it. "Don't shoot again, because that was just luck," one mean, fat one said.

Toodles knew he would shoot again. He strove to get open now, but it felt impossible at first. Finally he was able to steal the ball from an opposing team member. He was guarded in a weak manner by an opposing tower of a player. Toodles flitted backwards and shot the ball with a very high and powerful arc over the tall martian. It stayed afloat for three whole seconds before going straight it in the hoop with a "swoosh" sound. Players on the opposing team were now cursing. They usually won easily and with no real challenges.

The game became close, with the score 347 - 345, with the opposing team winning. Toodles was only being welcomed as a real teammate now by one of his fellow players. This was a thin and tall martian named Gooplardo. The game would go to 350, the coach had demanded. Toodles got the ball for a second, but was now being swamped and found Gooplardo open. He passed to him and yelled louder than he ever yelled before, "Shoot!" Indeed Gooplardo threw the blowfish to the hoop and it bounced around and in. Now it was 347- 347. Zwakinooflurg obtained the blowfish, rammed and shoved his way in the paint, and threw the ball down with a slam dunk, punctuated by an arrogant roar.

The ball was now being tightly contested. A scuffle ensued near the hoop and Toodles just watched from the three-point line. He saw some green ooze splatter and spray, and two martians get entangled in a knot. There was an eyeball rolling away by the basline. Then, somehow the ball was smacked by someone toward the corner of the back court and Toodles saw a chance. He ran hard to it, initializing the thrusters at the same time. He got the blowfish and pounced to just beyond the arc. He set up to shoot and almost shot it but held onto the blowfish right before releasing. It was such a convincing fake that it confused some of the opposing giants near the hoop, who looked up and down stupidly. The opponent fell for the fake like a real pushover and tripped, smashing into Zwakinooflurg. Then Toodles concentrated and felt the heaviness of the moment dawn down. He set up his form, holding the blowfish like he would outside his home. Fixated on the hoop with a meditative stare, he shot the ball up with a high and slow arc. The ball spun in the air, eyes of the fish appearing and fading, and the whole gym now watching. Toodles felt a strong emotion overcome him, and started to smile before the blowfish reached the apex of the arc. The blowfish continued smoothly on its path straight down into the hoop, and Toodles clenched his fists and tasted sweet victory.