Chicago Galaxy: The Bend(s)

Narrated 'opus' on what makes humanity so 'unique' (sports/politics/science-fiction!) and the 'grounding-magic' of community 'wrought' soccer ('sports-DNA').

A species love-letter featuring the 'magic' of community-spirited soccer, inspired by Bend It Like Beckham. Enjoy, 

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My name's Amlan Satan! I moved to the Windy City (Chicago) with my wife and daughter (Shelbye/Ezzy) where my wife became a linguistics professor at U-Chicago and my daughter enrolled at the private-school (Dartmouth). I took a position as a Chicago Galaxy junior-league (soccer!) coach while doubling by night as an Interpol-office(s) relations blood-diamond operationalist, intercepting gum-smugglers highways stretching between British Columbia (North America) and Northern Ireland (United Kingdom). It's been a life of drama since the move to Chicago, but my wife/daughter keep me 'grounded' in the human-world/life of Facebook/FaceTime!

SHELBYE: We live in a rather nice Chicago apartment which my department has arranged for Amlan/Ezzy/me.

I've been playing soccer and have been a soccer fan since I was a youngster. I grew up reading soccer bios and sports-commentaries in the newspaper in Algeria/India before moving to Calgary and then to Chicago with my wife/daughter where I began work as the Galaxy junior-league coach, improving the team's 4-4-2 offense maneuvers for handsome/effective 2-1 passing units to move up the field like a 'true' team! I consider myself a 'nerdist' of Windy City society-life now, even though I remain in my double-life the 'James Bond' of blood-diamonds and enjoy (incidentally!) reading posts about the new Leo movie about blood-diamonds on Facebook (social-media).

This is the year of the Qatar World Cup (soccer!), and it'll be the first-time ever a Muslim nation hosts the iconic global soccer-sports tourney, making a real symbolic statement about globalism in this post-9/11 era of commerce-bridge journalism and the governance behind maintenance of these new era international standards, made complex by civilization-IQ 'tremors' like the Russo-Ukrainian Tribulation(s) which have complicated media-talk surrounding the upcoming commerce bridges offered by the media-'rich' Qatar World Cup!

GALAXY TEAM-MEMBER: I love playing for Coach Satan; he's really cool and nice and we work hard, and we're in 2nd place!

I let my team-athletes (Galaxy) of this great 'Windy City' enjoy off-practice sessions/meetings enjoying the XS-Junior League Soccer video-game, which I've set-up as great activity on my Hitachi (home-entertainment). This is the age of great cyber-tech/toys and consumerism/capitalism, and I wonder who in the stars/heavens notes the 'buzzing' infinity of all these Earth-signals about 'digitized' fitness and consumerism lasers.

Doubling as the 'James Bond' of blood-diamonds in the Windy City when I'm not busy doing my Galaxy-coaching notes/work alongside my great coaching-staff and community residents/parents is like living a 'secret' like which has given me a certain 'Adam-and-Eve' vision of the 'bend(s)' of human civilization intrigue...and theater. It's all great drama here in Chicago, be it as Amlan the coach, or Satan the diamond-interceptor.

We had to swap the corrupt Baron Goldfinger's Sierra Leone 'conflict-gems' from a federal insured box in Chicago with toy-beads (glass!) for a media-message about the role of insurance-dialogue/disclosure(s) in modern baron-investments in urban centers of confounding asset-traffic and political ties. We've come a long way since the days of Babylon.

INTERPOL: Blood-diamond corruption threatens the gem-exchange(s) and makes terrorism woe!

However, this story about the 'bend(s)' in life in Chicago (soccer/blood-diamonds) has less to do with me being a 'prototypical' American 'captain' of society activity/intrigue and more to do with the human 'valor' imagination and daydreams that bring out the very-best of human beings (our species!) and what makes soccer/sport so indicative of the relentless human spirit yearning to celebrate simple divinity.

GALAXY TEAM-MEMBER: We like Coach Satan getting us special 'readings' like Nat-Geo features about kids-in-soccer today.

It's no 'shock' then (right?) that with all this 'robust' sense of human IQ and activity on Earth, there's 'ample' reason to think of the quality of our civilization's signature in the rest of the universe! I mean, what do other species of alien intelligence (if they exist!) make of our human race's work(s) with society activity and intrigue and commerce and media and community? In the signals-research area of Aracebo (United States), scientists remain busy contacting alien intelligences who may be relaying communication signals to us. It's a 'fantastic' Earth, with much scale for deeper complexity.

Well, one night, I turn on the news and hear of the emergency-news broadcast of a potential terrifying 'predator' alien who's made contact with Aracebo and landed on Earth and hid its spaceship somewhere in the Grand Canyon before prowling/soaring to Chicago (my city!) where it's hiding in the sewer-tunnels as a malicious invader seeking to dominate our species through measures of terror and fear. This 'insect-dragon' creature, the 'Xenomorph' (with razor-claws and acidic/explosive saliva!) had required the National Guard to explore the Windy City sewer-tunnels, and I'd been recruited for my Interpol-office(s) relations oriented 'authority' and link(s) to the Chicago police/security-force. I went looking for this terror of the tunnels in Chicago (the 'red insect-dragon' from Hell).

INTERVIEWER: So, you used your water-rifle toy gun filled with acid (inserted thin glass tube in shooting-piston) to kill alien?

ME: Correct; we'd assembled a patrol-force in the Chicago underground of about 10 soldiers; we cornered the alien beneath!

INTERVIEWER: It was surely an intelligence of malicious intent, no?
ME: We're all lucky; it's dead now; we know its 'cousins' won't soon visit our great Windy City; I just want to go home.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, you've got that awesome Galaxy (soccer!) game (championship!) to coach, Satan.

ME: That's right (thanks!).

What a 'misadventure' that red-dragon offered us by way of monkey-wrench sabotage to our otherwise 'normal' year of human-civilization intrigue in the great Windy City, right? I mean, who needs an alien ('Xenomorph') invasion amidst the 'ample' intrigue on Earth we encounter everyday on the streets, in our sports-fields, and in modern media/politics? Nevertheless, Chicago banded together to exorcise another 'form' of (underground!) labor.

GALAXY TEAM-MEMBER: Coach Satan's reading excerpts from a cool sci-fi thriller book called Aliens: Genocide for us.

So, the World Cup is still upon us, and human civilization has 'roamed' through the kinds of tribulation that make for an 'epic saga' for our great Blue Planet (Earth!). We've seen it all. I've seen it all now. Now, I can have the grace/teamwork-spirits of soccer to guide me through the rest of this great year in the Western world, as we Galaxy (Chicago) championship-winning soccer 'stars' prepare for TV-viewing of the Qatar Cup, when all of humanity is joined-together to celebrate what's so 'special' about our species 'sense' of shared dreaming. Soccer fans are the best (World Cup).

SHELBYE: He's been a 'hero' with gov't-work and soccer-coaching; then with the Chicago 'adventure' (alien); Qatar'll be great.

I got one of my team-athletes a Minute-Maid Dutch soccer 'star' sports-trading card, since I often tell this star-striker of our championship-winning Galaxy team (Chicago) that I 'shower' Ezzy (my daughter!) with all kinds of Dutch soccer jewelry, since we're all fans of the Netherlands in our Chicago household. Things are finally returning to that normal 'baseline' of sanity and species-cheers in the Windy City, and even my blood-diamond Interpol-inquiry work has subsided in political worry/pressures. Thank goodness for soccer and its relief on the 'bend(s)' of human consciousness.

SHELBYE: Soccer isn't the 'antidote' to everything, darling.

ME: True; but it's surely a daybreak from pirates and aliens.

SHELBYE: You're right (I think).

That's my love-story about soccer/Chicago. We've been through it all --- our human race. This summer might be a 'great' chance to look on all the great splendor(s) that made Chicago, the United States, Earth, and humanity itself such a great resilience 'force' for transcendence of the 'bend(s)' of life's twists-turns. Life in the universe surely shocks/detours; but at least we can 'Bend it Like Beckham!'

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)