The Photographer and the Football Player

Everybody watched in horror as the football player barreled towards the photographer kneeling on the sidelines. The crowd roared, the cheerleaders scrambled, and the referees crowded around as the 6’4” linebacker crashed into the photographer with a crunch as the telephoto lens smashed was into pieces, and a sickening, solid slap as flesh met flesh. The two tumbled over each other, nearly crashing into the wall at the edge of the field before something very strange happened.

The crowd tried to make out what was happening as the football player and the photographer seemed to be melting into each other! They were becoming a tangled mess of two people becoming merged into one. The referees tried helplessly to pry the two men apart, and even some of the other players joined in to lend their strength. It stopped when it appeared that the photographer had been completely absorbed by the football player. The crowd fell to a hush as they watched the football player laying on the field, his chest shallowly moving up and down.

Then, his eyes opened suddenly. He jumped up and shook his head, stumbling around and looking completely disoriented. The referees and his fellow teammates attempted to steady him, urging him to lay back down.

“Holy shit…” he appeared to say, “Well I’ll be damned… It worked…”

As his teammates looked at him with confusion, the photographer felt reality shifting right in front of his eyes. The looks of confusion were wiped from the football player’s faces, replaced simply with concern over what had been a particularly bad stumble off the field. The cheerleaders launched back into a cheer as if nothing had happened, and the band riled the crowd up as the referees escorted their favorite player back onto the field.

“All those years of watching from the sidelines, snapping photos,” the photographer thought to himself, waving to the crowd and smiling with his wide, handsome new smile – the same one that was on countless sports magazine covers and product endorsements, “And now I’m one of the star players in the NFL! Now let’s just hope this spell worked the way it was supposed to, and I’ve got all of his skill to go along with his body.”

Somehow, though, as he caught a glimpse of his new face on the big-screen, he didn’t think he’d have anything to worry about.