I got into position, the ball was snapped, and I lunged forward like a freight train. The opposing lineman misjudged, engaging me off balance. I pushed past him, making him spin like a turnstile. The QB was fading back, looking for a receiver to pass to. His eyes kept darting. I could tell he couldn’t throw a clear pass, and he was going to make a run for it. I could see, almost feel, his center of gravity shifting, and I knew which direction he was going to run an instant before he made the move. I surged toward him, knowing if I took him down it would be a major loss of yardage for the Phoenices. I hit him hard.

And the moment I made contact, it happened again.

This time it was different. The instant of cold wasn’t just an instant. It was like being submerged in ice water. Like the people leaping from the Titanic must have felt the second they hit the frigid Atlantic. And I was moving. I wasn’t falling, I was sliding. Not backward or forward, not up or down, or even sideways. I was sliding in a direction that doesn’t exist. I instinctively knew that this was much worse than before. The air was sucked out of my lungs, and I thought, This is it. This is what I feared. The zip line cable snapping. The plunge to oblivion.

And then I gasped. Not just gasped but sucked two whole lungfuls of air. In spite of feeling like I had just returned from a trip to deep space, I got to my feet, trying to catch my breath, not sure how long I had been lying there. It must not have been long, because no one seemed to notice. Everyone was just getting ready for the next play.

Everything seemed normal. Almost. Everything seemed fine. But not really. Because my head was still feeling the resonance of that place between. The phantom headache had an entire new dimension. There had been a colossal shift, but here, in the middle of a football field, I couldn’t see it yet.

So I did what I was supposed to do. I did my job. I took to the line. I didn’t take down the quarterback again, but my previous power tackle made him timidly toss away the next two passes, and then the Phoenices punted. I was off the field as our offensive team took their places.