Hog Hammond was a star player for Mississippi Southern University, and now he’s coaching them as they wind up to a momentous game against Alabama. Hog sits in the team doctor’s office, failing to describe exactly what type of pain he’s experiencing. He leaves the office with no diagnosis or advice, but throughout the day he has to hide the bile surfacing in his mouth and the feeling that his whole body has hollowed out and left him fragile. He is dying, Hog concludes. He wakes up his wife the next morning and thanks her for marrying him despite his humble origins and his failures.

On a visit to the grandparents, Hog is perplexed by how out-of-place his parents look in their modern kitchen, when he remembered them splitting wood and plucking chickens in his childhood. Hog’s mother insists he must be having trouble in his soul. She prays fervently and dramatically to Jesus in his name, bringing both of them to tears. Hog asks his father why he never went to church like his wife; his father says that his mother needs Jesus to die a peaceful death, but he reckons he’ll be fine on his own. Was I a good boy? Hog wants to know. Do you resent me for my success? he asks his brother. His family affirms they are all at peace with him; Hog feels his blood throbbing and wishes to die then and there.

Hog becomes preoccupied with light, in the morning sky and in his conscience, as he heads out to the big game. By way of a pep talk he tells all his players that good or bad, they have to stay tough. As the game begins, the players look like mere shadows against the all-pervasive light; and as Hog lies down on the turf to die he feels light and darkness in one fall upon him.