Ring of Absence

[Log entry 44.4] The ropes sagged like the tendons of some exhausted beast, rain thudding against their tarred fibers with a patient fury. They’d left the banner flapping above everything—WHERE VOJTA?—big enough to read even through the mist, as if the demand alone might conjure him back. But the silence inside the ring knotted itself tighter than any clinch. I touched the ropes; they felt slick, more salt than rain, and a shard of cloth peeled from the corner as though it wanted to follow him, wherever he went. Off to the side, the scoreboard’s promise—INSERT CHALLENGER—glared empty, a hollow dare framing our failure. Prints of his silhouette, stapled down low, had begun curling at the edges, like they were trying to turn away from the truth. Orange stains bled across puddled boards, smearing backward into the image of vanished motion. We stand guard by habit now, not hope, eyes cutting between crows and clouds. Still no signal, no sound—only the certainty that Vojta has not returned.