A place where writers take five minutes to write about a word, and then link up over at Gypsy Mama to read and comment on each other's offerings. Today's Word is Dive.
GO.
I know this dive, where low light illuminates the green felt
table. The next customer swings open the screen door, a bell rings announcing their
entrance. The door slaps shut. A few heads swivel from the bar.
She walks over to the counter, surveys the line-up. Orders a
drink and asks “Anyone up for a game?” The guy at the end of the bar nods. They
each grab their drink, placing it on a nearby table. She digs for a quarter out
of her faded jeans. Places it in the slot, pushes it in and kerplunk. Solids
and stripes roll into place.
She pulls them out one by one and her opponent racks them up.
He places the cue ball at the opposite end of the triangle made up of
alternated stripes and solids. She smiles at him. He takes his cue and pulls
back his elbow sliding the stick towards the white ball, which he expertly
cracks into the triangle busting up their symmetry, and sighs when not one
falls into a pocket.
She steps up and takes her turn. She leans over and eyes the
orange solid in line with the cue ball, nods toward the side pocket and drops
her first attempt to win this game. She positions herself and starts clearing
the table of solids. Her opponent leans on his stick watching her prowess, waiting
for his turn to show her a thing or two. She misses.
He drops a purple striped one into the far corner pocket.
They take turns until it’s just the eight ball and the cue ball and two players
wondering who’ll have the last say.
STOP.
You may be thinking that this post is quite a bit different than my usual offerings. And it is. I decided to take this five minute write as challenge to capture a place with words. One of my desires this year is to hone my fiction skills, which means developing scenes, characters and plots. So today, I chose to use my five minutes to practice one of my skills. I would love feedback as to whether this snapshot put you in the place or not.
