Mano-e-Mano

Imagine this:

A hot, dusty high noon on the deserted main street of a wild-west, one horse town somewhere south of the last exit off the Information Super Highway. Folks can find it on the map next to a tiny dot labeled "Yahoo League #273750", but the locals know it by another name: Fantasy City, USA.

As the sun scorches the barren, cracked earth a solitary tumbleweed rolls drunkely down the road, bisecting two stark and dangerous looking men locked in a death stare across the twenty yards and the Week 14 that divides them.

One is tall and lanky, his black leather holster embossed with the name of the deadly weapon it lovingly cradles: "The Romosexuals".

The other, shorter with peircing blue eyes and a reddish beard like steel wool squints as the sun catches the silver star emblazoned on his chest. It reads "WALL*E-on".

A doughy shopkeeper pokes his head, turtle-like, through a crack in the front door of a general store bearing the sign "NatsRedskinsWiz4Life". In a nerve-strangled voice he squeaks, "M'good sirs. Y'all are locked in a tie atop our fair city's standin's. It don't matter a tinker's dam what happens this week. Why can't y'all just agree to a stalemate and let us peaceful folk abide here in the cellar?"

"Man's got point." Says the shorter of the two gunfighters, and he spits in a high arc frightening the shopkeeper back into the doorway.

"I reckon he does" answers the taller. "How you figure we oughtta settle this?"

A long, tense moment passes. You can hear the buzzards ripping the flesh from the "Absentee Ballots" off beyond the edge of town. After years of starvation, it's amazing there's anything but sun-bleached bone left.

"How bout a duel?" The shorter and more handsome of the two offers. "You choose one player and bench the rest. I'll do the same. Mano-e-mano. May the best man win. Makes no difference who comes out on top this week. We're both locked inta a first round bye. Whatcha say?"

Another long mintue passes. You can hear the rusty gears grinding the thought into grist in the tall man's head. He squints against the blazing sun.

"Well? Whataya say, Phil?"