Measure Success [Hakim Ziyech]

Prologue

Prologue

Smiling Can Get You Hurt

*~*~*

July 2000
Berkane, Morocco

Her face was beet red and her body felt like it was on fire.

Leaving sandy dust to fly in her wake, she was running across the street and towards the two stones enclosing a small space opposite her. Acting and feeling as if she was racing on a big green football field and towards a real goalpost, her expression was pure concentration.

Alas, she was not. This was not a big football match with renowned teams fighting to defend their titles or nations trying to make their people proud. Nope, this was not at all like those games her father oh so loved to watch.

She was not even playing against someone.

But that didn't mean this was any less important.

Definitely not!

She was training.

Not to become a big football player and play in a team. But to do something that was (in her opinion) far more important.

To beat her dumb cousin in their next match.

Her cousin, Hassan, was two years younger than her at five years old but (annoyingly) far better than her at football and not above rubbing that into her nose. He taunted her even, mocking her that boys were superior to girls at football because football was, naturally, a sport for men only.

The audacity!

She couldn't even tell on him because then she would be a crybaby! Her pride could not take a snotty-faced little boy, whom she caught repeatedly picking his nose and trying to wipe his finger on her, calling her something like that.

It was a trait that got her into a lot of fights in school; her pride. Her parents were working hard to rid her of it.

Obviously, they'd been unsuccessful so far.

So, to avoid the humiliating and horrifying scenario of little Hassan making fun of her (and more importantly, her gender!) again she had to train so that she could shove her win into his always-stuffed nose and finally prove him wrong.

To achieve this, she was willing to even oversee the fact that she hated this stupid ball game, to begin with, and had no fun, whatsoever, in wasting even a single minute of her time running after a ball.

Seriously, who even came up with the idea to use one's legs to kick a ball?!

Certainly not her, as proven once again when she kicked the ball just a few metres away from her "goalpost" and it went soaring...missing the intended target by a lot.

She stopped running, letting air puff her cheeks and for a few seconds as she allowed herself to just watch the ball roll quickly across the street.

Nobody could say that her balls were lacking in power. If only she could better her aim. Just enough to be able to hit Hassan. In the face. Ideally, hard.

Was that really too much to ask for?

She sent a quick (hopeful) prayer to above before she started running, once again, to catch the ball before it could get even farther away from her.