These phantom pains in my right ankle yawn and stretch and awaken with this stricken grin, an anticipatory snicker. Wrapping their coiled, scaly fingers around my stretched and feeble tendons, leafing through those supple and flexible ligaments that now give way at their touch. A new soccer season, but the beginning. And I can already feel my looming surrender. Those pains like ghosts that shoot, and cut, and pull. Its like their unraveling the strings that tie my foot to my leg. If they hurt you ever after this, its time for surgery.
Stop it.