The Simplest Algorithm

"There's a particular kind of freedom in being a body instead of a person. No expectations, no calculations—just muscle and momentum and the ball finding its way home. The problem is, you can't stay there forever."

The world contracted to the court.

Samuel won the tip — barely, his fingertips catching the ball a fraction before James could redirect it. The leather found Daniel Vance's hands, then mine, then back to Samuel in a quick triangle that had us moving toward the basket before the other team had finished turning around. Samuel drove hard, pulled up short when Ryan Holloway stepped into his path, and passed it out to me on the wing.

I caught it clean. Squared up. The rim looked close enough to touch.

I shot.

The ball arced through the flat fluorescent light, rotating with that particular backspin you learn to read after enough years of muscle memory. It kissed the back of the rim, bounced once, twice — and dropped through.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Samuel's voice cut through the echo. He was already backpedalling on defence, pointing at me with both hands like I'd done something remarkable. "First blood, baby!"

James brought the ball up for the other team, his movements economical. He called something to Ryan, who cut toward the baseline. The ball swung left, then right, probing for gaps. I tracked my man — one of the Paralowie guys whose name I'd already forgotten — and tried to stay between him and the basket without overcommitting.

The first few minutes were always like this. Chaos dressed up as strategy. Everyone finding their rhythms, working out who could be trusted with the ball and who would turn it over the moment pressure arrived. The court was too crowded, really — we had more players than a proper game would allow, which meant constant substitutions and a lot of standing around on the sideline waiting for your rotation.

But when you were in it, when your feet were moving and your lungs were working and your body knew what to do without asking permission from your brain — there was a clarity to it. A simplicity that the rest of life rarely offered.

Samuel ran our offence with his characteristic exuberance, calling for the ball even when he was blanketed, attempting shots that had no business going in and somehow making half of them anyway. His game was all instinct and aggression, the kind of player who created opportunities through sheer force of will rather than any discernible system.

James Hahn was different. He played like someone who'd studied tape, who'd thought about angles and percentages, who understood basketball as a problem to be solved rather than a feeling to be chased. Every pass crisp. Every decision weighed. He was good — genuinely good — in that particular way that came from dedication rather than raw talent alone. The kind of good that gets noticed, that gets mentioned in Sunday conversations, that becomes part of how people describe you. James Hahn, you know, the Bishop's son — excellent young man, plays basketball like he does everything else.

I settled into defence and let my body do the work.

Guard your man. Stay between him and the basket. Contest every shot without fouling. The fundamentals were simple even when their execution wasn't. I'd been playing church basketball since I was ten years old, through all the stages — Primary, Young Men's, and now this strange liminal category of young adults that nobody quite knew what to do with. The rules changed depending on who was running things, but the game itself stayed constant. That was the appeal, maybe. The one thing that didn't require interpretation.

The ball swung around the perimeter. Ryan Holloway caught it at the elbow, pump-faked, and drove past his defender with a quick first step that suggested regular practice. He finished with a soft layup that barely disturbed the net.

"Nice," James said, slapping Ryan's hand as they jogged back.

Ryan nodded, his face betraying nothing. He played with the focused intensity of someone who'd learned that appearances mattered — not just winning, but looking like you were winning for the right reasons. Every movement calibrated. Every celebration appropriately modest. The body language of someone who'd spent two years being watched and evaluated, who'd internalised the performance so thoroughly it might not even feel like performance anymore.

Returned missionaries were like that, sometimes. They came back changed in ways that were hard to articulate. Some of them loosened up after a few months, shed the formal edges and remembered how to be twenty-one-year-olds. Others kept the veneer permanently, like it had fused to their skin.

I couldn't tell yet which category Ryan fell into.

The game continued. Samuel scored on a spinning layup that involved more luck than skill. One of the younger guys — Trent, maybe, the one with the gangly limbs who hadn't grown into his body yet — threw a pass directly out of bounds and spent the next thirty seconds apologising to anyone who would listen. The Nguyen kid made a three-pointer from the corner with the quiet confidence of someone who'd been making that shot his whole life.

I found myself matched up against Nate Baker somewhere around the five-minute mark. He'd drifted to the perimeter, occupying space at the three-point line without ever really threatening to shoot. When the ball swung his way, he passed it immediately — a quick, almost reflexive motion, like holding it too long might burn.

I guarded him loosely, giving ground. He didn't try to exploit the space.

There was something strange about watching him play. Or rather, about watching him not-play. He was present but barely participating, moving just enough to stay involved without ever demanding attention. Like someone going through motions they'd memorised but no longer believed in.

"You good?" I asked during a dead ball, the words out before I'd really considered them.

Nate looked at me. His expression was difficult to read — not hostile, not friendly. Just present. The face of someone who'd learned to keep whatever he was feeling somewhere nobody could reach.

"Yeah," he said. "Fine."

That was it. The ball came back into play and we separated, the moment dissolving into the larger pattern of the game. But something about the exchange stayed with me. The way he'd said fine — too quickly, too flatly. Like a door being closed before you could see what was on the other side.

Or maybe I was reading too much into it. I did that sometimes. Spent so much time observing animal behaviour that I started seeing patterns in human interactions that weren't really there. The curse of the naturalist's eye, turned on subjects that didn't appreciate being studied.

Samuel called for a timeout — unofficial, just a general agreement that people needed water and a breather. The two teams separated, drifting toward opposite ends of the court. Someone had brought a plastic bag of oranges, which were being distributed with the kind of earnest hospitality that characterised church activities. One of the young women — I didn't see who — had refilled the cordial jug at some point, and a small queue had formed around the folding table.

I grabbed an orange quarter and leaned against the wall near the stage, letting my heart rate settle. The game had been more intense than I'd expected, or maybe I was just out of shape. Uni life didn't leave much time for regular exercise, unless you counted walking between lecture halls as cardio.

From here, I could see the whole room. Samuel was near centre court, orange in one hand, gesturing expansively with the other as he recounted something to anyone who would listen. James had gathered his team for what looked like a strategy session — hands moving, heads nodding, the body language of organisation. Nate stood at the edge of that group, slightly apart, his attention somewhere I couldn't follow.

The young women had arranged themselves along the far wall, a loose geography of chairs and conversation. I recognised most of the Playford faces without being able to attach names to all of them. Megan Ashworth was there — dark hair pulled back, sensible cardigan, that particular stillness she had that always seemed like she was listening to something just beneath the surface of whatever was being said. She was nodding along to a conversation happening beside her, but her gaze kept drifting toward the court.

I looked away before she could catch me looking.

The break stretched. People refilled water bottles, made bathroom runs, checked phones that had been left in bags along the wall. The particular lull of halftime, when the energy of competition gave way to the slower rhythms of socialisation.

I was contemplating a second orange quarter when Megan appeared beside me. She'd moved without me noticing — one moment she was across the room, the next she was here, holding two plastic cups of cordial with careful balance.

"Thought you might want a drink," she said, offering one. "You looked pretty parched out there."

"Oh." I took the cup. "Thanks. You didn't have to—"

"I know." She smiled. It was a nice smile — warm without being pushy, genuine in a way that made me want to check whether I deserved it. "But you're welcome anyway."

She settled against the wall beside me, leaving appropriate space between us. The kind of careful geometry that happened when someone was interested but didn't want to be obvious about it. Or maybe I was imagining that too.

"Good game," she said. "You're pretty solid out there."

"I'm adequate. Samuel's the one putting on a show."

"Samuel's a show-off." She said it without malice, just observation. "There's a difference between being good and needing everyone to know you're good. You just... play. Like you're actually part of a team rather than auditioning for something."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Compliments made me uncomfortable in a way I'd never quite learned to navigate — they felt like gifts I hadn't earned, carrying the implicit expectation that I should give something back.

"How's uni going?" Megan asked, filling the silence I'd left. "Zoology, right? That must be fascinating."

"It's... yeah. Good. Busy." I took a sip of cordial to buy myself time. The taste was exactly what I expected — too sweet, vaguely chemical, the flavour of every church activity I'd ever attended. "Final year, so there's a lot of—" I gestured vaguely. "Stuff."

"I bet." She nodded like I'd said something more articulate. "I'm in the same boat with nursing. Clinical placements are insane. But worth it, you know? Doing something that actually matters."

"Where are you placed at the moment?"

"Lyell Mac. Emergency overflow, which is exactly as chaotic as it sounds. Last week I had a guy come in convinced he'd swallowed a tracking device. Turned out he'd eaten a battery from one of those musical greeting cards. His girlfriend's birthday card, specifically. Apparently they'd had a fight."

I found myself laughing despite the awkwardness. "Did he swallow it on purpose?"

"He was unclear on that point. The doctors said it would probably pass on its own, but he kept demanding X-rays to prove the government wasn't monitoring his digestive tract." She shook her head, smiling at the memory. "Never a dull moment."

"Sounds like it."

"What about you? Any exciting zoology stories? I imagine there are some interesting specimens in those labs."

I thought about my current project — population dynamics in Australian marsupials, which mostly involved spreadsheets and statistical modelling rather than anything that would make for good conversation. "Not really. A lot of data analysis, mostly. The exciting fieldwork doesn't really happen until postgrad."

"Are you thinking about that? Postgrad?"

The question landed heavier than she probably intended. I shrugged, the motion feeling inadequate. "Maybe. I don't know. There's a lot of—" I stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence.

Megan waited, not pushing. She had that quality — patience without pressure. The kind of person who would let you find your words rather than filling every silence.

"It's complicated," I said eventually. "Family stuff. Expectations. The usual."

"Yeah." She nodded like she understood, though I wasn't sure she could. "That's always the hard part, isn't it? Figuring out which expectations are actually yours."

Before I could respond, someone across the room called her name — one of the other young women, waving her over with the urgency of a conversation that couldn't wait. Megan glanced toward them, then back at me.

"I should—" She gestured apologetically. "But we should talk more sometime. Properly, I mean. When there's less—" She swept her hand at the hall, the game, the whole chaotic scene. "All this."

"Sure," I said. "That would be... yeah."

Her smile brightened slightly, like I'd given her something she'd been hoping for. "I'll hold you to that."

She moved away, rejoining the cluster of young women with the easy grace of someone who knew exactly where she belonged in any given social landscape. I watched her go, trying to untangle what I was feeling.

There was nothing wrong with Megan Ashworth. She was kind and smart and genuinely interested in a way that felt rare. By every metric I'd been raised to value, she should be exactly what I was looking for.

So why did the thought of talking properly make something in my chest tighten?

I finished the cordial, crushed the plastic cup, and pushed off from the wall. The break was ending — people drifting back toward the court, the energy shifting from rest to resumption.

The second half was messier than the first.

People were tired now, tempers shorter, the casual calls for fouls becoming more frequent and more contested. Daniel Vance got into an argument with James about whether a charge had been a block — voices rising, hands gesturing, the kind of disagreement that didn't really matter but felt important in the moment. Samuel and one of the Paralowie guys had a shoving match under the basket that might have been playful but looked aggressive enough that someone stepped between them.

The whistle kept blowing, disrupting the rhythm every few possessions. Momentum would build, then shatter against some disputed call or minor collision. The game fragmented into a series of starts and stops, the flow replaced by friction.

I found myself on the bench for a rotation, catching my breath while others took my spot. The view was different from here — you could see patterns that were invisible when you were in the middle of them. The way James directed traffic, positioning people like pieces on a board. The way Ryan moved without the ball, always finding space, always knowing where the defence was weakest. The way Nate drifted through it all like smoke, present but barely participating.

The young women had rearranged themselves during halftime, their chairs now angled more clearly toward the court. A few of them were actually watching the game. Most were deep in their own conversations, the basketball just background noise to whatever was actually interesting.

Two of them sat near enough that their voices carried — not loud, just not bothering to keep quiet. They probably thought no one was listening. Or didn't care if someone was.

"— and she just walks right up to him, like it's nothing —"

"I know. I saw. She's been doing it for weeks."

"Do you think he's actually interested?"

A pause. Something that might have been a laugh, might have been a scoff.

"Does it matter? He hasn't even gone on a mission yet. My mum says that's basically a red flag."

I kept my eyes on the court. My face carefully neutral.

"That's kind of harsh."

"I'm not being harsh, I'm being practical. You can't seriously consider a guy who hasn't served. Like, what's he even doing here if he's not going to actually commit? To anything?"

"Maybe he has reasons."

"Maybe. But still."

A third voice — quieter, harder to hear. "I don't think that's really fair—"

But someone else spoke over her, and the rest was lost.

I didn't turn to look. Didn't want to see their faces, to know for certain who had said what. It was easier not knowing. Easier to let it be disembodied words floating in the air rather than judgments attached to people I'd have to see every Sunday.

He hasn't even gone on a mission yet.

The words sat in my chest like something swallowed wrong. Familiar weight. Familiar sting. The particular flavour of inadequacy I'd learned to carry so long ago I sometimes forgot it was there.

Twenty-one years old. University student. Lliving at home, studying zoology, still showing up to church activities like I belonged here. Like I had any right to stand among people who'd done what was expected of them.

Samuel had never gone either — but Samuel was Samuel, somehow exempt from the quiet calculations that governed everyone else. He deflected questions with jokes and charm, sailed through on the assumption that he'd get around to it eventually, that someone with his personality would obviously serve when the time was right.

I didn't have that defence. Didn't have the easy confidence that made people stop asking.

What's he even doing here if he's not going to actually commit?

The whistle blew. Someone was calling me back onto the court. I stood, legs heavy, and jogged toward my position.

The game resumed, and I threw myself into it with more force than necessary. Using the physical exertion to drown out everything else. Run. Pass. Defend. The simplest algorithm. The only one I trusted myself to execute without second-guessing.

Samuel scored on a ridiculous shot from halfway across the key — one of those attempts that looked like a mistake until it went in. James made a show of being gracious about something, his sportsmanship conspicuously visible. Someone from Paralowie complained about an out-of-bounds call that probably was one.

I drove toward the basket on the next possession, feeling a body beside me, contact on my arm. I went up anyway, the ball leaving my fingers just as someone's elbow caught my ribs. It rattled around the rim and fell through.

"And one!" Samuel shouted, already claiming the foul.

I didn't celebrate. Just jogged back on defence, let the burning in my lungs fill up the space where thoughts wanted to be.

The scoreboard ticked upward. The minutes bled away. And somewhere in the noise and sweat and breathless motion, I almost managed to forget that I was anything other than a body doing what bodies were designed to do.

Almost.