American novelist and playwright Irwin Shaw (1913-1984) was also a distinguished short-story writer. One of his most enduring tales is "The Eighty-Yard Run," about a frustrated ex-jock whose single moment of triumph took place 15 years earlier during football practice.
In this, the opening paragraph of the story, Shaw relies on participial phrases and absolute phrases to bring to life Christian Darling's memory of his few seconds of fleeting glory.
from The Eighty-Yard Run
by Irwin Shaw
The pass was high and wide and he jumped for it, feeling it slap flatly against his hands, as he shook his hips to throw off the halfback who was diving at him. The center floated by, his hands desperately brushing Darling’s knee as Darling picked his feet up high and delicately ran over a blocker and an opposing linesman in a jumble on the ground near the scrimmage line. He had ten yards in the clear and picked up speed, breathing easily, feeling his thigh pads rising and falling against his legs, listening to the sound of cleats behind him, pulling away from them, watching the other backs heading him off toward the sidelines, the whole picture, men closing in on him, the blockers fighting for position, the ground he had to cross, all suddenly clear in his head, for the first time in his life not a meaningless confusion of men, sounds, speed. He smiled a little to himself as he ran, holding the ball lightly in front of him with his two hands, his knees pumping high, his hips twisting in the almost girlish run of a back in a broken field. The first halfback came at him as he fed him his leg, then swung at the last moment, took the shock of the man’s shoulder without breaking stride, ran right through him, his cleats biting securely to the turf. There was only the safety man now, coming warily at him, his arms crooked, hands spread. Darling tucked the ball in, spurted at him, driving hard, hurling himself along, his legs pounding knees high, all two hundred pounds bunched into controlled attack. He was sure he was going to get past the safety man. Without thought, his arm and legs working beautifully together, he headed right for the safety man, stiff-armed him, feeling the blood spurt instantaneously from the man’s nose into his hand, seeing his face go awry, head turned, mouth pulled to one side. He pivoted away keeping the arm locked, dropping the safety man as he ran easily toward the goal line, with the drumming of cleats diminishing behind him.
First published in Playboy magazine (May 1955), "The Eighty-Yard Run" appears in Irwin Shaw's Short Stories: Five Decades, originally published by Delacorte Press in 1978 and reprinted in 2000 by the University of Chicago Press.
