She hopped down the wooden stairs and raced to the sand court in the back yard. It was only nine A.M. but the summer sun beat down without mercy.
The net seemed twice as tall as the girl. The only sounds came from robins in the sycamore trees.
She went over to the apple tree, not looking for the lowest hanging fruit. She jumped over and over, reaching for the fruit out of her reach. The unripe 'manzanas' weren't the point. It was the jumping, again and again.
Summers passed. As she walked to school, neighbors called her name, "Maria, Maria, que tal."
She grew taller and stronger. She dreamed of the day she could easily clear the net and make the ball obey her.
Every day, the same routine, the hopping, the jumping, the dream.
Eventually, everyone knew her name in the high school, college, and trying out for the National Team. She owned the court, it no longer owned her.
She found the game and the game found her.
At 175 cm, she wasn't the tallest, simply the one who had been jumping for apples the longest.
(Author's note: this was an effort to tell a brief story in the style of Hemingway)
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