Michal Viewegh - Playing Pig-in-the-Middle

For a change, so that my fun was healthy and I didn't get those urges, I had to go to Wednesday's Sport and Games lesson, which in the case of our grammar school is a purely formal name for what is really common or garden pig-in-the-middle.
"You're not being serious, Dad, are you? You can't mean it that if I play pig-in-the-middle I won't get urges!"
"Look, you're going do it, and that's an end to it."
"You must be making this up! You really think that if I allow myself to be beaten up with a ball once a week, I won't have sinful thoughts?"
You'll never guess what his answer was.
"Healthy body, healthy mind!"
I beat my ugly head against the table but still my father refused to bend. His commands were as dogmatic as the Pope's, and just as absurd, just as much a stranger to common sense - whatever, he clung to them for all he was worth.

Pig-in-the-middle. Captain. Could be that for the attractive, gifted athlete these terms and others from childhood like them have a magical ring which makes them go all sentimental. But I can assure you that we the ugly still shudder at the sound of them in our forties. This is how you play pig-in-the-middle: you run from line to line like a frightened animal, dodging a ball which is whizzing back and forth - in the full knowledge that sooner or later one of your lovely classmates will drive the ball into your stomach or kidneys from close range. You groan in comic fashion, your features distort in pain, you fight back the tears which are drumming against your eyes, and, with the mockery of your opponents (and often your team-mates) hanging in the air, you go and stand behind the line. Unlike the so-called captains you only have one life, so your role in the game is over once and for all. I was struck so many times that I lost count. The number of beatings I took would have stood me in good stead for years to come. I've been through quite a lot in life - still, one encounters such a concentrated display of human cruelty but rarely. The whole of my youth spent behind that line in a state of humiliation, so that my storm could blow itself out. Battered with a ball for the whole of my youth, just so there was no chance of my getting off with a bus driver or some such.

The captains would choose their teams: the best players first, of course, then those of average ability, until they got to Skippy, me and Větvičková (in that order). And there it is, what is practically a role for life: second from last. Inadequate for life, not dire enough for suicide.