The tournament has begun. Sit on your allotted stump. Let out your arms and
legs, wave and jerk them according to formula assigned to you, and, all the
while, constantly move your head back and forth in a sweeping arc. This is
the official posturing of the tournament. Variations should have been
registered and approved by the refrees 48 hours previous.
Last year’s tournament was very much a success, possibly because of the
rigorous attempts on the part of the officials to completely erase any
memories of the catastrophe that happened two years before. Who’s to say
what this year will be like? Many predictions have been made, all of them
falling on deaf ears, as the people have finally learned through experience
not to pay heed to any runnings of the mouth and pen by the various people
of the city that have a need to do such things as this.
The first day is usually rather uneventful. Even with the tidal wave of
building anticipation, it seems that most everyone prefers to ease into the
proceedings. In fact, the first day is probably the most oppressively
gloomy and lifeless day of the year, for being so anticlimatic. But this
despair, which seems so deep and foreboding on the first day, and
especially so late in the evening, is completely and absolutley forgotten
with the goings on of the second, third, forth, and, especially, the fifth
day.
After dusk on the fifth day is the most exciting, when the winning family
has been announced and awarded the prize. That is the time, of course, when
all of the other families who think that they have been cheated out of
victory in one way or another, come forward to protest their scores, some
more vehemently than others. The noise usually dies down by dawn, after the
offical scores are finalized and published, and an illustration of the
winning family has been posted in every home.
THE MOSSY BOG 