Welcoming Leonard: Part Two

Leonard Fournette walks out of LSU's Football Ops complex after a long summer workout. On a whim, he turns to his left down Skip Bertman Drive, eying River Road and the levee. He decides to walk down that way, and up to the top of the levee.

He looks out across the massive expanse of the Mississippi River as a barge is driven south. The vastness of what he surveys causes Leonard to ponder everything that's out in front of him.

Leonard (/to himself): Man...look at all this. This thing goes all the way through the country. And one day I'm gonna get to see all of it man. Buga nation. This is everything I'm working for. All of this, this is what's out in front of me...

A voice wispers...

Majestic, isn't it son.

Leonard (/surprised, looking around): What? Who's there?

Voice: The way something so grand. So powerful, comes from so many.

Leonard: Where are you!

Les Miles, lying in the grass nearby, sits up. The coach is wearing his typical gameday coaching apparel, including his trademark white hat. He was previously unnoticed because the entire front side of his body is painted green, just like the grass.

Leonard: ...Coach?...

Miles: Hello Leonard.

Leonard: What the hell are you doing coach?

Miles: Just enjoying some quality time son. Helps me feel...at one...with the field. I know why you're here son.

Leonard: ...Oh, just coming check things out. Never really looked at the river like this before...

Miles: Take it in son. You have a lot in common.

Leonard: ...I don't understand, coach...

Miles: You know, people might see something this big this...powerful, and think that it does it all on its own. But the Father of Waters is fed...constantly, and feeds, constantly. Lakes, rivers, tiny streams. They run to it, and it runs all the way down through here until the end. And just like it, we have an illusion of self. A false sense that we are all acting alone, bereft of the orbits of others. Immune from their gravity, or they from our own.

Leonard: Yeah, coach I really don't get any of this.

Miles: But everything is connected, Leonard. An individual strand of silk is nothing. But spin it into a web and watch the bounty it will generate. But it is only in combining, do those individual points of view create.

Leonard: Wait...being united...generates attitude. I feel you coach, I feel you.

Miles: Not yet son...we're still beginning. Run along now. I have to go.

/Miles lies back down, motionless.

Leonard: Coach...I can still see you there.

Miles: No you can't.

Leonard: ...Yeah coach, I can. Especially when you move your lips.

Miles (with his mouth closed): unnnhunnnnhh!!

Leonard shakes his head, turns and walks away.