Chapter IV I keep having this dream. There is a football stadium, rested at the foot of a mountain, and filled with an army of players. They form rows and columns of red and blue. Just outside the stadium, in the streets and among the trees, there are even more. There must be ten-thousand of them. At the top of the mountain, there is a giant cross, and standing on the cross is a man. He orders them to march. He's pointing at me. They are coming for me. They are marching for my destruction.

MARCH 9, 2015. I can't do this. I've decided I can't do the bags anymore. Not this morning, anyway. I pour my scrambled eggs out of the bag; I'll eat straight off the table if I need to. Means. Timmy, you nervous? Tebow. A little, yeah. I'm out of my depth with all this stuff. I don't know anything about legal battles. It's been a few weeks since my pass bounced off Freddie Mitchell's fingertips and fell into the Ottawa River. We tried running east along the riverbank, just trying to keep eyeballs on it, but we stopped when we realized that we had no idea of how to retrieve the ball if we caught up to it. The water was as cold as it could be without being ice. Our next thought was to find a frozen stretch of the river, wait for it to get stuck against a chunk of ice, and simply pull it out of the water. That meant that both the Argonauts and REDBLACKS had an equal shot at the ball, which was vastly preferable to the alternative of letting it sail all the way down to Ottawa. Canadian citizens are a part of the field in bound-for-street play, and are thereby allowed to touch the ball. Just as we had a strong advantage in Toronto, the REDBLACKS would surely leverage their home field advantage to intercept my pass. We figured that the ice formations were our only real shot. The REDBLACKS recognized this. So they dragged out a whole bunch of dynamite. The were on the other side of the river, and they waved at us. And then they blew the river to Hell.

There's just not an answer for that sort of pass coverage. Unobstructed, the ball floated the rest of the way to the REDBLACKS' home turf, where it was picked up by city officials, and that was when we were dealt an extraordinary stroke of luck. Ottawa, of course, is the nation's capitol. Upon learning of the "Argonauts v. REDBLACKS" case, the federal government intervened, and declared that they, and not Ottawa's city government, would issue the ruling. Means. I'm sure the city government would have just given the ball to the REDBLACKS, and that would be that. But the federal government is full of members of Parliament from all over the country. Toronto included, of course. I think we have a very real shot to win possession of this football in court. Tebow. So the Parliament of Canada was just bored? Is it really as simple as that? Means. Yeah. There's just nothing for them to do. Canada solved all its disputes and settled all its problems decades ago. I mean, in terms of its economy, its social policies, its laws ... this country runs like a Volvo. They gave Parliament absolute judicial authority decades ago, because nobody else really wanted it or had any use for it. Tebow. It's just incredible. Means. Yeah. By and large, the only time Parliament actually does get to rule on something, it's because some poor lost Americans wandered up here and manufactured problems. That's our chief export. Problems. Tebow. It's like Canada's the version of America where everything works right. Means. Ha. You know, I try to stay away from the "version of America" thing. It feels presumptuous. Given all they're accomplishing up here, maybe we're the pale imitator of Canada. Tebow. So America's Kroger-brand Canada. Means. Right! They're Captain Crunch, we're Mr. Rhinoceros Pirate or whatever. It's the little things. When you're in another land, without really thinking about it, you really come to miss the little miscellanea that compose your American experience. I love my American teammates up here. Not only because -- but because -- I can crack a Kroger joke. So Nate and I tied our ties, buttoned up our suits, and walked into the House of Commons. And now we are going to complete this reception.

Speaker of the House of Commons. If you'll beg our pardon, gentlemen, we already had an item on the docket. Docket? Is that a House of Commons thing, or is that just a word for like a criminal court or something? Tebow. I'm not sure, Speaker. Speaker. Mm. Sorry. It's just been a really long time since we've actually had to do anything, I forgot the right words for stuff. OK, so anyways. We will get to you gentlemen in just a minute. Our first item on the docket is a resolution ... let's see ... "A resolution to elevate our national blackout to stage five." Members of Parliament, if you'll recall, we're presently at stage four of our energy conservation initiatives. For one example, the communications networks in most of our cities have been shut down and replaced with the shoutie networks, which require no electricity. This, of course, is in anticipation of a coming international energy crisis. Stage Five will mandate that all nonessential electrical devices will be shut off for a minimum of 10 years. The power we save without cars, computers, lights, what have you, will be conserved for emergency services during this period. After this period, we anticipate our solar energy infrastructure to be fully implemented and operational, thereby ushering in a golden age of prosperity. All opposed? Member of Parliament. I'm halfway through Kid Chameleon. Is the Sega Genesis covered under essential services? Speaker. I'm afraid not. MP. Drag. Speaker. Any further objections? ... OK. Resolution passes. I'm too nervous to pay attention. I've got a stack of legal documents in front of me. Most of them were prepared by St-Hilaire, the only member of the Argonauts to attend law school. Speaker. The next and final item. "Toronto Argonauts v. Ottawa REDBLACKS." So what we have here is, Mr. Tim Tebow threw a pass to Mr. Freddie Mitchell in a bound-for-street CFL game. It deflected off Mr. Mitchell's hands, off a bridge, and into the Ottawa River. The ball can float. Since it has touched neither dry ground, nor the bottom of a riverbed, this was and is a live ball. It is currently in the custody of the Canadian government, which, per CFL rules, is part of the field. REDBLACK. That's correct, Speaker. Speaker. And we in the House of Commons are now to decide whether to award possession of this ball to the Argonauts or the REDBLACKS. This decision will be regarded not as a judicial intervention in a football game, but simply as a force of natural law. Just as, say, gravity or the wind might aid a reception or interception, so shall our ruling. Tebow. Understood. Speaker. Please submit your legal arguments to the court. Everyone knows what can go down in a dogpile. The players scrap for the ball under that heap. It's vicious. There's a punch in the groin, maybe a finger in the eye. This dogpile feels not unlike that, only instead of bodies, I'm obscured by layer upon layer of legal dealings I don't understand. I rise from my seat and bring our documents to the Speaker. It's fifty pages or so, enough to intimidate a layman like myself. But then I look across from me. A REDBLACK is pushing an enormous stack of papers on a moving dolly. In fact, there are a half-dozen players, each of them bringing a mountain of paperwork to the front. By the sheer magnitude of their argument, our case looks like a joke. I am going home. This is over. I close my eyes and see a 32-ounce thermos of gas-station coffee, sitting in a cup holder, I'm driving a Camry through a suburb of stucco and mulch, a land without sidewalks ... I turn into a cul-de-sac, the cup tilts over, it's spilling ... spilling ... Speaker. Lordy, this is a lot to go through. Well, there's Ottawa for you. I will review the REDBLACKS' case first. ... My word ... ... My word! What is this shit? He hastily flips through the REDBLACKS' documents, holding up each one to see as he does. Speaker. They're ... they're all like this. Like half the page is blacked out. Was there a misprint of some sort? Can someone do us all the decency of explaining what the Hell I'm looking at? REDBLACK. No misprint, Speaker. I'd like to take you aside for a moment, reader, if you ever exist at all. You may have noticed that I've been typing "REDBLACKS" in all-caps throughout this story. You see, the Ottawa football franchise was founded in 2014, right around when the scourge of corporate branding was at its worst. In order for their brand to stand apart, the team made a request to the media: stylize our entire name in upper-case. It's a gauche idea and a completely ridiculous thing to ask of journalists. I'm sure you can find the press release on the Internet somewhere. It's just absurd. I'm only honoring their request in this memoir because I think it's funny. Emboldened by ... themselves, I suppose, the REDBLACKS went even further. In official team documents and correspondence, "REDBLACKS" must be stylized in a 1,000-pt font size. And that, on this day, is how this Speaker of the House of Commons has found himself with tens of thousands of unnecessary pages, almost none of them readable. Speaker. A thousand-point font. And you did this why? REDBLACK. Gotta protect our brand, m'man. All branding. In today's social media world, you gotta stand out, you gotta engage with people. This is just engagement. Engagement, m'man. Speaker. This isn't engagement, you donkeys. You must have killed a hundred trees for this nonsense. REDBLACK. Well, we want possession. Words cannot properly express how badly, and how dearly, we want to make this interception. We have been knocked all up and down Ontario, giving up turf a thousand yards at a time. As of this moment, the Argonauts have pushed us back to the 359,000-yard line. They are faster and more inventive than we are, and Tim Tebow has emerged as the greatest pure thrower in the history of the CFL. We anticipate that as their American players grow more acclimated to these lands and develop their Northern pith, halting their offensive drive will be impossible. We believe that this may indeed be our last chance to stop them. But you know, this is the age of social media. Gotta protect your brand. Gotta engage. Speaker. Well, I'm not reading this shit. I hereby award possession of this football to the Toronto Argonauts. He bangs his gavel and motions for the ball to be brought into the chamber. He takes it in his hands. Speaker. Mr. Tebow. Catch. The REDBLACKS' defenders have been waiting to tackle me for weeks. I scramble throughout the chamber, ducking under desks and running up staircases. I take a wrong turn and a REDBLACK delivers me the clobbering of my life. And that is how I throw a 185,468-yard pass to myself.

QUEBEC I'm sorry that I can't offer you specific dates for everything. All I know for certain is that we entered Quebec on March 9, 2015, and when we finally pushed the line of scrimmage to the edge of the continent, it was September 16th, 2026. You may consider Super Bowl XLVIII, in which the Seahawks scored their first 36 points unanswered en route to a 43-8 humiliation of the Broncos. Think also of John Heisman, who sent his 1916 Georgia Tech football team against Cumberland College's team of 14 laymen, and wrecked them 222 to 0. Every fallen Washington Generals team. Every player in every mercifully blurry AND1 mixtape who has a ball bounced off his head. Every weeping six-year-old T-ball player who swung at the ball by holding the bat over his head and swinging it straight down against the plate. All of those, even combined, are transparent in comparison to the Toronto Argonauts' 11-year trashing of the Ottawa REDBLACKS. We shove the line of scrimmage across plains and around lakes and through craters and up and down mountains and across the whole of endless Quebec. I try to remain a humble man. I take no special joy in humiliating these REDBLACKS. I'm bragging as much as I would be bragging if I told you that I held a glass of wine in front of me and dropped it and it shattered on the floor. We whooped them all up and down French Canada. This is a statement of fact.

He was fine. The Northern strength that I'd developed was the same constitution that allowed the REDBLACKS to sustain a stiff-arm that sent him rocketing a hundred feet through the air. They did, at least, appreciate it if I could at least knock them into a body of water, and I obliged whenever I could. And God bless them, they never quit. Nereida Volquez. Hey, Timmy. Tim Tebow. Oh! Hey. I was just working on that memoir I've been talking about. Volquez. Oh yeah? How are those paintings coming? Tebow. They kind of suck. We all look like fat little R.B.I. Baseball men. You know what's hard to draw, is legs. Anyways, I got to the part where we're in Quebec. Volquez. That country's gorgeous. Just wish it could have stayed nice all year. I mean, I know we stopped counting the days after a while, but I think we ... hey, I'm sorry. I'm totally interrupting you. Tebow. No! No, no. I'd love it if you took a turn and talked a little. Volquez. Happy to. So the Americans -- you, Dante, Nate, Freddie, Peterson, everybody -- I think it was our second winter in Quebec when you guys first built up your Northern strength. The REDBLACKS couldn't stop us, but the weather still could. We'd have to stop playing four months out of the year just to set up winter camp and stay out of the cold. Tebow. It's funny. All my life, my favorite day of the year was the day it first got cold in the fall. The air got all dry, you made crunching noises when you walked. It even sounded different, because all of a sudden all those Florida neighborhoods full of all those noisy air conditioners would finally shut up. God may as well have poked His head through the clouds and said, "Hey. Tim. It's time for football." In Quebec it was different. That's the day you're like, "Welp. Time to start building a yurt." Volquez. It was cold as Hell. Even in the middle of the day, the temperature averaged about negative-10 Fahrenheit. There was so little sunlight in the winter, too. The sun would go up at 11:30 and set at 12:45. We got some of our supplies from trading with First Nations folks, and some of it from the airlifts. Have you gotten to that yet? Tebow. Nah, not yet. Volquez. Well, you know, the CFL commissioned monthly airlifts to get supplies to us. Uniforms, food, building supplies, basic living essentials. And you and the other Americans thought it was just hilarious. Just because all the stuff was branded with movies and TV shows and stuff. I still don't get it. Tebow. OK, here's the thing. They weren't just any movies. It's not like having, like, a Batman sleeping bag or something. It would make sense for there to be an official Batman sleeping bag, because everyone knows Batman. But I'd open a crate and find, like, Remains of the Day pajamas. The CFL pretty clearly hired a cut-rate supplier for us. America's got countless warehouses full of worthless shlock that nobody buys, and it sits around in the dark forever. I think they just took it off their hands on the cheap. Like, do you remember my Hitch shoes? It was a decade-old movie, and nobody would conceivably ever want Hitch shoes. I remember one time, Freddie hiked out into the woods to get one of the crates they dropped. And he comes back, and like, he's wearing a Monkeybone shirt and Kangaroo Jack pants.

Volquez. You two laughed so damn hard. Pants are pants. Who cares? Tebow. I'm just saying, you would have thrown away that Gigli dishware if you'd ever seen the movie. Volquez. Well, I'm happy you found them so amusing. The CFL made a pretty huge effort to get us that shit at all. They successfully argued to Parliament that under Canada's blackout laws, the planes counted as an "essential service." You've been over that, right? Like, you've explained the blackout part? Tebow. Still getting to it. Volquez. Fuck, Timmy! All right, well. Very short story version: The world's running out of power, Canada sees it coming and figures out how to generate electricity forever. But it's gonna take 10 years or so to build all the infrastructure, so they conserve their coal and whatnot for all those lean years. So Canada's just totally blacked out. Northern Quebec and the prairies are even emptier of people than it used to be. No cars, no lights, nothing. No way to know what's going on in the rest of the world. Tebow. Yeah. I missed the States. You guys pulled me through it. And, you know, the peace and quiet was nice. And out there, there's a lot more of God's creation and a lot less of the stuff Man has slapped all over it. But I missed home. I always wondered who was winning the AFC West. What everybody was doing. Whether Johnny Manziel was making good. Volquez. I remember you used to like to go off by yourself sometimes. Tebow. Once in a while, yeah.

Tebow. I remember one time I was out there, just going for a walk through the woods, and I ran into Todd Peterson. Volquez. Poor Todd, man. Tebow. I mean, what's a kicker supposed to do in a game like that? It's not like there were any goalposts out there. Even if there were, why would we ever want to kick a field goal? We were gaining all the yardage we wanted. Hundreds of thousands of yards. Well, this is what. I see that he's built this practice net for himself. You know, the ones you use to warm up for a field goal. He's just out there with a practice ball. Kicking into the net over and over. He doesn't know I see him. I could see people having a laugh at this, but I just felt bad for him. Volquez. I blew up at him once, you remember? Tebow. I do. Volquez. Whenever we got a first down, we'd wheel all our shit up to the line of scrimmage. It was already a bad day. You'd called a slant route that sent me running into a bee's nest. I've got bee stings, I'm tired, hungry, pissed off at everything. We're taking our stuff up over this old dirt trail. Todd could easily be carrying his net, but he just drags it behind him, and it's hitting every rock in the road. Clang, clang, clang. All afternoon. And this is somehow the last straw for me. I'm like, "Todd, give me that fuckin' thing." I grab it from him and I slam it on the wagon, but when I do it breaks in half. I'm looking at the half I still have in my hand, it has "property of todd" carved into it. Like anyone would ever want to steal it. I look up at him, and he's crying. I felt horrible. I've apologized to him a hundred times, but I still feel bad about it. Tebow. I always felt like I kind of related to Todd. He played football all his life, he had been there and done that. And now, he was just hanging around for no reason. The difference between us is that, you know, I eventually found a team that could use me. He just didn't. Nothing will make you lonelier than not having purpose. Purpose is like gravity. All the friends and fans and everything? Without purpose, they're just floating there, the universe is like a big soup. Volquez. I'm glad you found your purpose. Good luck, Timmy. Love you. Tebow. Love you too. * * * AUGUST 2020.

We're just about halfway across Quebec. We're holding up well, and everyone's generally in pretty high spirits, I think. A few players have married each other. A REDBLACK had a baby last year, a little boy. He's a little terror these days, running through camp every night around dinnertime. I love that kid. The supply crates keep on falling out of the planes. I just wish they'd stuff a Sports Illustrated into one of those crates. A New York Times. Something, anything, from home. Thank God for Nate. Back in 2014, he must have been the only quarterback in the CFL to do prep work for bound-for-street football. No other team ever even bothered, I don't think. Even if a team did go bound-for-street, which happened once every 25 years or so, it's not like they would have expected to go more than a few yards past the end zone. But Nate thought big. He never showed anybody his binders upon binders full of maps, star charts, and field guides identifying safe-to-eat berries and roots. Everybody would have thought he was nuts. But that's Natrone Means. He just dreams as big as he feels like. We've got all of Quebec mapped out, and the REDBLACKS don't. That, frankly, has only been a major advantage in occasional specific circumstances -- for instance, you hit a river and turn east, because you know there's a bridge a few miles up the way. There's really only a handful of natural features in Quebec that, if played properly, would have a big payoff. I'm driving our offense just a little further East of our trajectory, so we can make our way to just such a place. Tim Tebow: Hey, Henry, you there? Henry Burris, Ottawa REDBLACKS free safety: Sure am. How's business, man? Tebow: Oh, you know. It's going. Burris: You know, I was thinking on something the other day. I used to be a quarterback. I started exactly one game in the NFL, for the Bears in '02. You know a quarterback's bad if he only started one game, ever. But of all those quarterbacks, in all those games, I'm the only one to throw four interceptions and no touchdowns and complete less than 40 percent of my throws. Nobody else has done that in the NFL since they started playing Super Bowls. So from a lot of perspectives, you could argue that I'm the worst NFL quarterback ever. That's why, when I join the REDBLACKS, they're like, "Yeah ... we think we're gonna put you on defense." So I'm a safety. And in hilarious, cataclysmic timing, my first season ends in a defensive stand that lasts years and years. Y'all beat our asses up and down. I think all this together makes me the losingest football player in the history of the planet Earth. Tebow: Sorry about that. Burris: Eh. Wasn't all bad. It was nice, actually. Countryside's beautiful out there. Tebow: So I'm trying to piece together a recap of the play. The big one. I can't really tell this story without y'alls' perspective. What's Ottawa's thought process here? Burris: Well, we don't have very detailed maps, and don't have much feel for the lay of the land, especially once we get this far up north. We sort of suspect you're taking the line of scrimmage a little further east of your trajectory, but figure that maybe you're just a little lost or something. We get to the Manicouagan. There are a few ferries docked at the shore here and there, but y'all keep passing them up. Finally, you see two right next to each other, and you board one of them. We don't know why you waited until you saw two of them. I guess you're just being nice. Tebow: We're not. Burris. No. No, you're not. You're being a bunch of assholes. So you sail across the Manicouagan, and we're in pursuit in the other boat. You disembark and head north into the woods somewhere. We head up there and try to find you, but then we notice flames and smoke coming from the shore. You gave us the slip. You turned back around and scuttled our boat, and now you're sailing back to the other shore, right where you came from.

Burris. So I'm thinking ... why the Hell did you do that? I mean, yeah, you sunk our boat, so we can't go back and chase you. But still, we're upfield, right where we're supposed to be. We were like, "What are they accomplishing?" You guys get off the boat and start walking West along the shore. So we follow you on the far shore. You're not making any attempt to cross. You ditched your boat. We think we've got you pinned down. I must have spent hours staring at you through my binoculars. I was like, "Maybe they lateraled the ball to someone up here." But, nope. All eleven Argonaut members of the play were all on the other side. And you were still clearly holding the ball.

Burris. This goes on for two weeks. Two damn weeks. We're still over here, you're still over there, and we're just walking. And then one afternoon, y'all stop. You turn to us and wave. I think you're mocking us or something, but I see your faces through my binoculars. It's like you're ... sad. Guilty or something. Tebow. We were. We were playing the game the right way, I really believe that. Burris. I know, I know. I do too. And then, y'all just turn around and walk away from the shore. So we're wondering if you just up and quit. I mean, the game had been going on for six years. We didn't recall any of you mentioning that you were getting tired of playing. But maybe you were. And then we got pissed off, because we don't understand why you destroyed our boat. Again, we don't know the lay of the land here. So we split up and search all around. See if we can find another boat, or a village, or some First Nations to talk to. Anything. One group of REDBLACKS goes up and maps the land. The other group walks along the shore and maps it. And this is what trips us out: the two groups keep running into each other. How? They're going in different directions, right? Oh come on now, Timmy. Stop laughing. Tebow. Sorry. I'm sorry. So what's your reaction, like, the instant you figure it all out? Burris. One day I'm triangulating all our data and drawing out a map of the Manicouagan. And then I stop. Awwwwwww, SHIT.

Burris. We just followed you in a damn half-circle, until you were north and we were south, and then you bailed. Tebow. We were sure y'all were gonna figure it out at any minute. Burris. Well, think about it. That's a huge circle. Enormous. On an hour-to-hour basis, if you're walking along that shore, does it ever dawn on you that you're moving on an arc? It looked straight to us. We killed days and days just not moving, trying to figure out where we were. By the time we did, you were long gone. And we never saw you again. Tebow. Gave you guys the slip. Forever. Burris. We knew it wasn't even worth it chasing you. It's one thing to be that guy on the special teams unit who runs after the kick returner even after he's 50 yards ahead of him. But that's, like, five seconds of hustle. This was asking five years. We knew it was done, and we went home. * * *

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things. - Philippians 4:8 God gave us the beautiful features of the Earth to dwell on -- the mountains, the trickling streams, the oceans full of thousands of creatures we'll never know. Those appeal to our hearts, but God also delivered us wonders that appeal to our intellect. Big geological puzzles to solve. God orchestrated the planet for hundreds of millions of years, and left the evidence sitting there for us to behold when we were ready. There's a string of five craters on Earth that would appear to be random events until we piece the continents into the singular supercontinent of Pangaea -- a theory which, in the typical and delightful fashion of our Creator, is supported by the craters themselves. About 215 million years ago, they rocked the Earth. One in the Ukraine, one in France, one in Quebec, one in North Dakota, and one in Manitoba. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Set all the continents next to one another, and you see that all the craters run along the same, mostly-straight line. They form a chain. I like to imagine God planting His five fingers into the Earth and shaking it like a magic eight-ball. "Well, I don't know," the Earth said, "You tell me." The biggest of the five, by far, is the Manicouagan Crater. You can see it from space.

For hundreds of millions of years, it was just a rock that crashed into a bigger rock, for no reason and with no meaning. It had to wait so long. It makes me proud that finally, we little humans could lend it purpose, however brief and insignificant on a geological scale. Even if the purpose mattered to no one but us. * * * JUNE 2023. Yes, we are still playing, nearly three years after the REDBLACKS packed up and went home. It's completely fair to ask why we would still be out here. The first reason, which is probably rather unsatisfying, is that we are football players, and our appetite for open field is boundless. When we were kids, we'd watch Barry Sanders rip off a 75-yard run, and we'd think about it every night before we went to sleep until April. If you've ever played, and if you've ever had even a moment of broad daylight ahead of you on the field, my guess is that you think about it every day, a year later, 50 years later. The second reason is that we have come to love this place. The vast majority of it has never been known by man. The land is so enormous that not even the First Nations tribes can say they've explored more than one acre out of every twenty. One day, surely, the whole of the Earth will be populated, every stone will be unturned, and no one will ever again be able to say that they saw what hadn't been seen. Discovery of this Earth is a finite commodity, and we are devouring it, hand over fist. The third reason is that we have a fan base, a thing we never expected. The Innus and Naskapis, in particular, have taken an interest in our game, and so has the occasional French Canadian family we run into. The kids really love it in particular. Most of the time, our game is a pretty tough sell to any spectator, since it's really just a bunch of folks hiking in football uniforms. But once a week -- and I insisted on Saturdays -- we hold a "lateral day." Remember, we can't down the ball. This ball has been live for three years. If we downed it, the REDBLACKS would be over one million yards offsides. We'd have to snap the ball, accept the offside penalty, step five yards forward, and repeat. Given all the land ahead, we'd have to do that about 180,000 times. No fun. Our solution, then, is to just play backwards on Saturday, since every backwards lateral remains a live ball. Sometimes we'll play a full game-within-a-game. But sometimes we'll do "stunt days." Those are the real crowd-pleasers. Dante Hall. You picked one Hell of a mountain, T. Just getting up here has got me gassed. I'm a 44-year-old man. What are you tryin' to do to me? Tim Tebow. I think it's gonna be worth it. So what's the setup? Hall. Down on the lake, we've got a canoe we've marked with a sign. Here, take the binoculars. You see it? Tebow. ... yeah, there it is. Wow. Hall. Too far? Tebow. Nah, I don't think so. I don't think I've ever tried one this far. Bet I can hit it, though. Hall. What's the ball setup? Tebow. Full house. Weights all the way through the ball and the jav. I've gotta be able to cut through the wind. Everybody ready down there? Hall. Oh yeah. Must be a couple hundred people. Tebow. All right. I pace back and forth on a little runway I've cleared for myself, kicking away the last few pebbles and twigs. My cleats are clean on the bottom. The ball feels good. I take a running start, time my breaths, and let it rip. Hall. Dude. It's looking good ... oh man. Oh man.

Hall. OH SHIT! Tebow. JACKPOT, BABY! Hall. OHHHHHHHHHH SHIT! Throws like this one could only be possible if you took a quarterback with this weird, janky throwing motion of mine, and then fed him through the physical conditioning corridors of the NFL, and then dropped him into northern Canada to build up years of Northern strength. This is where I am supposed to be. It's just a pity I don't have a defense to rain Hellfire on. I could take them by the hundreds. Dante pulls me to my feet. Hall. Tim? Tebow. Yeah. Hall. That is the most butt-ugly throwing motion I have ever seen. Tebow. Praise the Lord. * * * NOVEMBER 2024. There is one more reason we keep on going: pure curiosity. We're getting worried. The airlifts have stopped. The last plane flew in from the southwest in August. We've been good with rationing, but we only have a few weeks' worth of food left. We do have some rifles, and for a time I thought about hunting, but we have a few ethical vegetarians on our roster. I will never ask them to betray their beliefs. I would sooner quit. And that, it seems, is what we'll have to do soon. But I'm out chopping firewood, and I hear a crash about a football field away. A shipment has fallen, but from what? It's so quiet out here, especially in the cold months, that we can hear a plane coming from a couple miles away. I see shadows, and I look up, and I'm scared stupid by this stealth plane that's hovering at maybe 50 feet over the tree line. It is completely, absolutely silent. It hangs right and pulls away. That afternoon, we gather the crates and wheel them back to camp. The stuff in this shipment puts the CFL airlifts to shame. There's McDonald's. Oh, thank God, there's McDonald's, and by some technological marvel, it's still hot. St-Hilaire. This tastes like shit. Means. You kidding me? This shit is amazing. St-Hilaire. If I'm gonna eat a bucket of salt, it'd better be some poutine or something. This has no flavor profile. It's just fat and salt. And the buns? If I ate this burger with the wrapper on, my gut wouldn't know the difference. Tebow. Maybe it's an American thing. Like, yeah, it's gross. One time, my freshman year in Gainesville, I ate McDonald's every day for a week, and it tasted terrible in a hurry. But I think this is true for a lot of Americans: if you have McDonald's once a year? It's amazing. Best food ever. Mitchell. Y'all can have all those Angus burger or whatever. I'm gonna kill all these Happy Meals. Whoa, hey. Means. What? Mitchell. Got a James Bond toy. Means. Lemme see the wrapper. They made Jaden Smith the new Bond? Even now, there's no way he's old enough to be Bond ... Y'all, look. The copyright here says it's 2046. Tebow. Wait, there's no way. Means. No. There's no way in Hell. The year's 2024. I'm positive. Volquez. Guys? Guys, look. Nereida pulls a box out of one of the crates. Means. Sixty-five? Sixty-five seasons? Mitchell. It's a prank. Whoever dropped those crates is fuckin' with us. Volquez. I don't know ... if it's a prank, it's a really elaborate one. Discs are in here and everything. Means. I don't suppose they gave us a Blu-Ray player. Volquez. Not that I saw. Man, the back of the box has copy and everything. "Television's most critically-acclaimed show returns for a 65th season. His conspiracy exposed, Snot Boogie is on a mission to rebuild his empire and re-take Baltimore's streets. In his way is Galactic Lord Carcetti, who has assembled an army of cyborgs en route from Alpha Centauri. Amidst this turmoil, Poot and Marlo encounter the hard truths of the retail athletic footwear industry." Mitchell. Wait. Who was Snot Boogie? From here forth, the airlifts continue on the same schedule the CFL shipments arrived. Occasionally we'll find another impossible oddity: a Home Improvement: The Next Generation T-shirt, or a Law and Order: Macon box set. Someone knows we are out here. And that someone has answers. * * * AUGUST 2025. The other night, we threw a birthday party for our play. The ball has been live for five years now. Man, and we're all getting so old. I just turned 38, Dante's about to be 47, Nate is 53. Even St-Hilaire, the kid, is in her thirties now. Every night, we tie a rope to the ball and hang it from a tree branch to make sure it stays alive. We take turns keeping watch at night, just to make sure bears and the like don't come sniffing around. Tonight it's Nate's turn. I'm pretty sure he just pulls out a lawn chair and sleeps in it. I'm woken up by a commotion outside my tent. Nate is catching his breath, doubled over. The ball, thank God, is still up there hanging from the branch, but it's swinging. Tebow. What happened? What's going on? Means. This dude. This dude went for the ball. I don't know where he came from. He points to a man on the ground who pretty clearly just got all his wind knocked out of him. He's wearing blue, and red, and white ... Oh my Lord. It's him.

Nate has just thrown the block of his life: clean, head-on, devastating, and of historical importance. At 5'10 and 250 pounds, he's always reminded me more of a blocking back anyway. But right now, I'm staring at this man. The one I've seen in my dreams. He coughs and rises to his feet. Tebow. Who ... who are you? Troy Smith, quarterback, Montreal Alouettes. You shouldn't have to ask that. He cackles and rasps as he speaks. Troy. I am here to claim possession of this ball for Montreal. Tebow. What? You can't do that. Means. Actually, he can, technically. Bound-for-street rules allow a team to act as a third party and make a play for the ball. But you're out of luck, Smith. There's a lot of us, and one of you. Troy. There's still time for you to all to run. Go home to your American football, or the pathetic excuse for it these days. Means. Run from what? Troy. My army is behind me. Yessss ... my army is coming. You will hand me the ball now, or you will be trampled underfoot. Tebow. The army ... I've seen the army. I've seen it. What he's saying, it's true. And it's a legal army. CFL teams normally fields rosters of normal sizes. But years ago, in the interests of keeping it a Canadian game, the league implemented what is known as the "import rule." A team isn't allowed to field more than 20 players from other countries. There are no such roster limits for Canadian players. Troy has built a roster of ten thousand players. These are surely the last hours. I turn to Nate, and worry is all over his face. * * * Troy won't stop making plays at the ball; whenever we've sent him to the turf, he's simply gotten back up and tried again. We finally grab some rope and tie him up. The CFL doesn't have a rule against that, although we have to check to be sure. He defiantly spits on the ground. Troy. The Toronto Argonauts have had their time. Untie me, present me with the ball, and accept your fate! Hall. Shut up. Troy. Ten thousand men are at my back. They will soon be here. It will be a new golden age of football. We will remember what you have done, but it is over for you. He stays that way, struggling in his ropes and insisting upon his army, until about noon the next day. Troy. You have seen it, yes, Gainesville? You have seen it in your dreams? Tebow. I ... have ... I don't know how. Troy. I stood upon the cross, at the top of Mont-Royal, an ocean of Alouettes below me. They could not all fit in Molson Stadium, and so they spilled into the lots and streets ... yes ... Means. Well, they sure are taking their time. Troy. Ah ha ha. Do not worry. I blew upon my horn and cried, "Blitz to the north!" And then I ran, certain of my possession and of your fumble. St-Hilaire. North? Troy. Yes. North. St-Hilaire. You aren't from Montreal, are you? Troy. No. St-Hilaire. And ... your players are all non-imports, right? Montrealers? Troy. Of course. Delightful people. I look over at St-Hilaire, and she's grinning. Uh-ohhhhh. St-Hilaire. Magnetic north or Montreal-north? Troy. What nonsense are you speaking of? St-Hilaire. They're not the same thing. If you're a Montrealer, west is the mountain. East is Stade Olympique. South is the Saint-Laurent. So you figure out where North is. Troy. Lies! Lies! St-Hilaire. Here. I'll prove it. Let me get my maps.

Hall. Oh ... my ... God. They went west. Means. They're in Edmonton by now. Good guess, Nate. They are, indeed, just outside of Edmonton, Alberta. By land, they're over two thousand miles away from us, and marching further in the wrong direction. Troy stares at the map in silence for a long few moments. And then: Troy. ... Fuck! Why is it like that? St-Hilaire. I don't really know. Tebow. So wait, it's not some weird Groundhog Day kind of tradition where it's a joke, and nobody believes it. This is real? St-Hilaire. Yep. If a Montreal cop gets a radio dispatch to head north? She goes Montreal-north. If you tell a Montrealer to go north, that's what you get. Troy. This is bullshit. This is seriously so much bullshit. Ahhhhhhhh this is so stupid. Another long silence. St-Hilaire. So ... you never checked to see if they were behind you? You never looked back? Troy. I try not to. Means. You gotta be able to read your offense if you're going to succeed in this league. Troy. That has always been a problem for me. * * * We let Troy loose. Before he does, he and I take a walk through the trees. Troy. You know, I did get my hands on that ball. If a third team touches the ball in bound-for-street play, the offside rule goes out the window. You don't have to worry about the REDBLACKS being offside anymore. Down the ball wherever you'd like. Tebow. Thank you. I knew you were coming. I had dreams. Troy. I know. A Heisman winner can always sense the presence of another Heisman winner. The stink is all over us. That is how I found you. We Heismen are a wayward collective. You were the fourth Heisman Trophy winner in 10 years to play in the CFL. For a moment in time, we're the most celebrated players in America, and then we tend to drift to the north. I don't know why. Tebow. I'm glad I did. Troy. What has kept you going? It's rough up here. Why didn't you quit years ago? Tebow. When I look back on everything I've seen, I can't help but believe that ... this is my purpose. It makes no sense that a throwing motion that works so devastatingly well in college football is suddenly worthless in the pros. It's like when God was making me, He gave me that weird throw to make sure I'd never end up in the NFL. Like a stopper or something. It's odd to play the greatest football in the history of the sport, and for almost nobody to see. Troy. l should tell you something. If I could have taken that ball, the line of scrimmage would have been reset in a different direction, according to the angle of the field in Molson Stadium. Do you know where that would have taken me? Us? I try to remember what I saw in my dreams. Molson Stadium rested against the side of the mountain at an angle ... the Alouettes' end zone is at the north ... that would have taken us ...