They wanted to play Australian rules. “Doesn’t that only apply to pool?” I asked.

They said no, Australians play tennis with three people, too. “One against two,” croaked the woman. The man echoed her. “One against two, one against two, one against two . . .”

His head looked like an eggplant—too small and too purple to be real. She was a thick, heavyset woman. Not obese, but fat enough to command my attention.

She wore a skirt. He wore legwarmers. I wore short-shorts.

She served first.

The ball hit the top of the net with a resounding smack and fell onto their side of the court. She cursed at the top of her lungs. She served again, throwing all of her weight into her swing. The ball caught fire as it sped towards my head. I ducked sideways, but not quickly enough. The ball lodged into the fence behind me and left a sizzling skid mark on my cheek.

“Long,” I said.

“In!” screamed the woman, and threw her racket at me. It struck her partner in the back of the head. He waved his arms in furious circles, trying to steady himself, then collapsed as if a strongman had smashed him with a mallet. The woman didn’t skip a beat. She approached the net, gesticulating, spitting, ululating. Her body fat quivered and cheesed up in places as the harangue intensified. Finally she climbed atop the net and dashed up and down it with the skill of a veteran tightrope walker, threatening to quit the game if I didn’t recant the call I had made.

“Long,” I repeated. “The ball didn’t even hit the court.”

She sprung off of the net onto my side of the court. Grunting, she dropped onto all fours and charged at me like a bull. I tried to gauge the attack, wondering if I should dive left or right or maybe jump over her, but her charge was too erratic, too unpredictable, and I got the sense that no matter what I did, she was going to nail me.

I closed my eyes and stood my ground.

Sound of a horn . . . a screech . . . a crash . . . Smell of burning flesh. I opened my eyes.

My opponent lay under an overturned yellow minibus, her legs pinned beneath it, her hair on fire. “It was in!” she croaked as the hot flesh of her forehead melted into her eyes. “The ball was in!”

The trunk of the minibus clanked open and a figure in a thick brown cloak tumbled onto the court. It somersaulted into a standing position, brandished a fire extinguisher, and sprayed my opponent’s head.

All that remained was a clump of white, solidified foam.

More cloaked figures fell out of the trunk. Like their companion, they were short and bald and resembled monks. One of them looked at me and said, “We crashed.”

Frowning, I loosened the waistband of my short-shorts. “I know,” I responded, admiring the minibus’s rear view mirror. It was almost the size of the hood. “I like that rear view mirror,” I added.

They gathered around me in a half circle and shed their cloaks, exposing glittersuits decorated with Christmas tree ornaments and long strands of tinsel. “We’re interpretive dancers,” their spokesperson said. “We want to dance for you, if you please.”

I shook my head. “Dance? I’m calling the police. There’s been an accident.”

The spokesperson stepped forward and raised his hand. “Don’t do that. We don’t want any trouble. We just want to dance. Everybody’s fine. Nobody got hurt.” The rest of the interpretive dancers nodded.

“What about my opponents? You killed one of them.”

“That’s true.” The spokesperson glanced over his shoulder. “But one of your opponents is still alive. See?” He pointed at the knocked-out heap of limbs on the other side of the court. “When he wakes up, you can play one on one.”

“One on one,” repeated the others. “One on one, one on one, one on one . . .”

I cocked my head.

“Let’s begin, then. We don’t even need music. Your presence will be our music. You will be our interpretee.”

“I’m leaving.” As I strode off the court, somebody tripped me from behind. I fell and scraped my knees. I got up and continued walking. The interpretive dancers blocked me. They chanted and whirled like dervishes. They did cartwheels, jumping jacks, back handsprings. Then they leapt onto each other’s shoulders and began clinking zils between their fingers. I moved forward. The bottommost interpretive dancer had quick feet. Whatever direction I stepped in, he was there first, and he moved closer with every step, and the clinking of the zils intensified as the upper interpretive dancers waved their arms and made bird noises. I stopped. If I didn’t move, they couldn’t interpret me, meaning they couldn’t move either.

I closed my eyes and stood my ground.

A few minutes passed. I started to daydream. I daydreamed about a volley that went on forever. Back and forth, went the tennis ball. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth . . .

I opened my eyes. The interpretive dancers had climbed off of each other and were pushing on the minibus, trying to turn it right-side up. The corpse of my female opponent had been dragged out from underneath and neatly hung over the tennis net to dry. My male opponent had regained consciousness. Wheezing, he helped the interpretive dancers with the minibus, his neck corded, his arms trembling . . .