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.
souldare 
Leave a Reply to Kel Rohlf Cancel reply