Hope is the Most Dangerous Illusion: Galaxies Tie the Noose Tighter
by Werner Herzog

On a warm October night in Allen Park, Michigan — where the air tastes faintly of burnt leaves and broken dreams — the Galaxies took to the ice once more, desperate not for victory, but for meaning. Their 4–2 loss to the Thunderbolts marks their third defeat this season, paired with two hollow ties that linger like unfinished sentences. They remain winless through five games — not plummeting, but slowly drowning.

The first half was domination incarnate. The Thunderbolts played with mechanical certainty, carving lines in the ice like a machine that knows no doubt. The Galaxies, in contrast, resembled a group of men trying to remember why they had once believed they were a team. Down 3–0, they skated like ghosts, bound not by strategy but by inertia.

And yet — life stirred in the corpse. Alderman, until now a figure of no statistical consequence, found within himself two goals, powered (he claimed) by “push-up jobbies.” There was something both absurd and noble in this explanation. In a universe devoid of justice, why should effort not manifest as minor miracles? His goals brought the Galaxies within one — an illusion of proximity, of salvation.

But illusions are fragile things. The Thunderbolts' final goal, an empty-netter, did not pierce the Galaxies' armor — it merely confirmed its nonexistence. That goal was not scored against a goaltender but against hope itself. It was a bureaucratic act, the stamping of a form that declared the comeback officially dead.

Ruben, standing in for Korepta (felled by illness), played his third game of the night. One wonders what it does to a man to give and give and give — never to be celebrated, only used. Ruben is not a player but a placeholder, a necessary body filling space where fate has carved a hole. He is the quiet martyr of the beer league: always ready, rarely remembered.

After the game, the players retreated to the parking lot — their sanctuary. Beers were cracked open, laughter shared beneath a canopy of indifferent stars. The fall air was perfect, yes, but perfection is meaningless when the soul is weary. They drank not to celebrate, but to forget. And they laughed not because anything was funny, but because silence might reveal the truth.

Five games. No wins. And yet they will skate again. Because to stop would be to face the unbearable question: why did we ever start?

And still, in Allen Park, where rustling trees once stood and under flickering lights, the Galaxies chase something they cannot name. Not victory. Not glory.

Only the echo of a dream they cannot wake from.