For The Game

I couldn’t tell why my head felt so fuzzy. I had only had a handful of pulls on my own flask. You better believe I didn’t trust these clowns to pour me a drink. Not when so much money was at stake.

We had been playing cards for well over an hour now in a dingy little basement room underneath a bar. You could hear the crowd upstairs watching the game. It would grow suddenly silent if a goal was likely, everyone intent on the action. Then the silence would break out into yelling and cavorting, regardless of whether someone scored or not. Their lives were wrapped up in their game.

My life wasn’t wrapped up in this game, but most of my money seemed to be. No matter what happened, I always ended up back down here with a mix of strange and familiar faces. The deck was always fresh. Someone bought it, brought the receipt, then someone else unsealed it in front of the rest of us, and finally a third person counted the cards and discarded the jokers.

We were getting close to the end now. The reactions to the game upstairs were growing louder, but I was so focused that somehow it all seemed further and further away. I knew that if I let my attention slip I could be in the hole for months to come.

I was safely in the zone, so there was no worry of that actually happening. Numbers and probabilities were flying through my head so quickly that all the thinking and playing was based on subconscious instinct.

Jarring me back into reality, the fans upstairs erupted into a drawn out hooting that put all their previous cheers to shame. Not only was it loud, but the noise wouldn’t stop, and it sounded like they were jumping for minutes on end.

Without warning, the floor collapsed. I was crushed almost immediately, my cards still in my hand. I couldn’t see anything, but I could smell a lot of cheap beer.