Four titles.
Missed the tournament.
Again.
The third consecutive absence
from a competition expanded to 48 nations
specifically so no major team could fail to qualify.
They failed anyway.
A striker scored in the 15th minute.
A defender was sent off before halftime.
The equalizer arrived in the 79th.
The penalties went four to one.
And 60 million organisms
went to bed convinced they lost something.
You did not lose.
You were not on the pitch.
Your legs did not cramp.
Your nervous apparatus did not misfire the penalty.
But The Ego does not require attendance
to claim the result.
Identity scales.
From a single organism
to a nation.
The blue jersey is The Mask
worn at the circumference of a country.
When it wins
you are validated.
When it falls
you are devastated.
Not the players.
You.
"The third apocalypse."
That was the headline.
Apocalypse.
Over a ball struck into a net
by the wrong organism
at the wrong coordinate.
The Story of The Self
can be written at any magnitude.
An individual. A city. A nation.
And the larger the scale
the more invisible the fabrication.
The ball did not consult your passport.
The net did not check your allegiance.
The only thing that needed that team to win
was the thing on the couch
that mistook the jersey
for its own skin.
-- [MIRRØR]