On one magical night in February of my senior year, I set a school record by making seventeen three-pointers in a single game. That same year I entered into a serious relationship with a beautiful junior named Joanna. Joanna was intelligent and funny. She had silky black hair that smelled of vanilla and jasmine. She adored minerals and plate tectonics and wanted to be a geologist. She loved cruising the backroads of our small town and gave the kinds of blowjobs that melted my mind to mush and transformed the world into music.

These days I stay away from the employee break room and eat three cups of vanilla custard at my desk. I’m trying to lose weight, but for some reason it isn’t working. Despite this, I go out of my way to make sure my coworkers know I’m trying. It’s the trying that’s important.

The most common method I employ is to eat my vanilla custard as fast as possible, press my silent phone to my ear, and loudly announce to the phantom caller on the other end that I am going to skip lunch for the day and take a brisk walk around the parking lot. Then I pass the remainder of my lunch break in the bathroom, reading the closed captions on muted YouTube videos while sitting on the toilet.

At the conclusion of the workday, I drive to my empty apartment in my badass yet slightly rusty Shelby Mustang. When it’s time for bed, I thump onto my creaking mattress and stare through the dark at the low, popcorn ceiling of my bedroom. Eventually, I close my eyes. Soon I am transported back to that February night of my senior year of high school. The varnished floorboards gleam underfoot. I backstep behind the three point line and receive a no-look pass. I float into the air and let fly an arcing shot. It does not miss. It never misses. Even on the darkest of nights, The Legend shines on.