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Getting lost in the woods wasn’t what Kennedy Loser wanted to do on a fine Saturday night, but it was the only way to find Forrest, and he desperately needed to talk at Forrest. Since Ascension, Best had been even more reclusive than he once was, only showing up for practice and games and disappearing soon after. Brock and Parra figured it was just the homesickness they all felt, some more literally than others. Of note, Tosser had been stuck in a nasty cycle of molting, shell sloughing off only to regrow the next day. The team was doing what they could to help, but without being Home there wasn’t much to be done.
None of that was what Kennedy wanted to talk about, thought. He had something else on his mind, something he needed some, any, resolution for.
Time moved differently for Kennedy Loser. He couldn’t change it, or travel through it, but it moved differently all the same. The weeks and years that blended together for everyone else didn’t blend for him, and Kennedy had always been unsure what to make of it. It was arguably a blessing and a curse, but Kennedy didn’t see much of a blessing in that awareness. It made losses hurt more and victories stretched thin. When Tillman had been fried to a crisp, it bothered everyone but only Kennedy felt the following time, and it hurt. As team captain, and possibly more importantly team dad, he tried to not let it bleed into everything else, but living with that guilt for as long as he did made that impossible.
It was getting worse, too.
The season had been brutal, but it had moved like any other. Now, time felt like it’d stopped altogether, with some distant mechanism whirring one day every week? Year? He couldn’t tell and almost didn’t want to. But now, he could feel that the last of those moments, for a while anyway, was coming. If he was going to get answers, maybe now would be the last shot for a while.
After an hour or so of blind stumbling in the dark woods, he found Best’s new place. It was a clearing, littered with rusted out car frames and at least three buses. Down the middle of the clearing was a line of four points, and far to the left Kennedy saw a shadow. In a single blink, Forrest stood before him, wooden limbs limp and crab legs tense.
“Hey.” Loser said, stumbling for words in the moment, “How’ve you been, bud?
One of the limp hands raised for a moment, as if puppeted, and the hand made a so-so motion. It fell back down, and Kennedy felt a familiar scraping in his ears, knowing that Forrest was trying to talk to him more directly.
“What is it?” asked Forrest, vibrating Kennedy’s inner ear to get the sounds across.
“I wanted to ask you something.” Kennedy replied, almost ashamed of coming here in the first place. “Something about time.”
“Yes?” was Forrest’s reply.
“Have you ever noticed anything about time, Forrest? Like, how long it really is? Cause I do. I notice it, even if no one else really does.” Kennedy asked, wishing Forrest would have stolen a lamp post or two to set up in his little camp.
“I notice everything, Kennedy. I notice that the years take weeks and the weeks take nine days and that we will never truly experience anything real outside of Blaseball. I notice that we are fading farther from perception and that we could not win games until the one that Bevan pitched. I notice that you’re tired and so is everyone else. I notice that we all want to go home, and I know we’ve all been thinking of ways to do it. They won’t work.” Forrest said, swaying in a breeze.
“Huh. Well, at least there’s that.” Kennedy said, kicking at the dirt. “Speaking of noticing things, what’s with the, uh, line right there. Sprint track or something?”
“It’s how I see the field.” Forrest replied. “I don’t have eyes, of course, so my perception of it can be loose.”
“Right.” Kennedy replied. “Right. Well, uh. I was gonna ask you if you knew why time was like it was but it sounds like you might not either.” He sighed, leaning up against one of the cars long left to ruin. “Would it even matter if you did know?”
“That depends.” was Forrest’s reply. “Knowing will not make it a thing you can control. You can know every detail about a hurricane and you will be no less adept at harnessing it. You’ll just know how much danger you’re truly in.”
“Do I wanna know?” Kennedy asked.
“No.” Forrest replied, “You don’t want to know the danger we’re in.”
“Great. Can I crash here?” Kennedy asked, “Don’t wanna be a bother, but it’s late and a real long walk back to my place.”
“I would welcome it.” Forrest said, “We only have each other up here, Kennedy. I know you know that, and everyone feels that. But we should acknowledge it more. We need to.”
Kennedy nodded, and slumped against the car.
The Crabs were far from home, they’d gone up and climbed, but one thing was still true.
They were a team, in sickness and in health.