Try a Game in The Hall (Finish The Story #47)

Opening by @f3nix

"Five.. twenty-eight.. twenty-two.. twelve.. Seventy-nine.."

The marker's mottled surface is like that of a glass marble. It's hard to say where it starts and where the woman's fingers end. It flies on the large bingo card: a tablecloth covering the entire table, whose borders move in a capricious Moebius ribbon. Slender curls emerge rhythmically on the plasticised surface each time the marker grazes it. Now, the instrument is obeying to the imposed angle and pressure, producing the sound of a cat tongue licking a window. Between a number and the other, the woman clings to that image like a castaway anchoring to a slimy rock.

"Thirty .. thirty-one.. ninety-eight.. sixteen .. forty .."

The room has no windows but its walls are brightened by an arabesque of pulsating lines. When the plot detaches from the walls, it innervates on the orange rug and converges on a humanoid obelisk in the center of the hall. Thin wrists flex in synchrony, marking the numbers on the tablecloths every time that the obelisk punctuates them in a propagating fibrous echo. The fleshy organ of this creature is the only hallmark in an otherwise completely smooth mannequin's face. Its mouth unfolds through a complete circumnavigation of the dull head. Its lips are the valves of an agonizing oyster.

"Six .. thirty-three .. sixty-six .. eighty-six .. forty-one .."

The woman's slender fingers move a lock of hair back to the ear. In the time of a sigh, a caress lingers on her temple without the marker losing its rhythm. Sometimes, a new customer enters and takes a seat at a table sinking into one of the faux leather chairs. Soon enough, his face will begin to melt, dripping on the card's elusive signs, becoming one with them. In one of those ephemeral moments between a number and the other, the woman was able to raise her head and glance beyond the bingo door. The outside is the mute vowel of a blinding white expanse.

Sometimes, she struggles to remember her arrival. A cat licking a window reappears in her mind until a number sweeps it away. If there were windows in the hall, would that white nothing leak through them and fill the hall?

"Eighty-one .. thirteen." All in a sudden, the electricity of a look runs through her. It's a man from the table nearby. "..ty .. ninety-two.."

The marker hesitates in mid-air barely enough to make her lose a number.

My Ending

The nib trembled over thirteen. One more dot, and she’d have it.

Bingo.

The man held her gaze, his looks staying her trembling wrist. The urge to make splodging contact was overwhelming, tearing through every part of her.

The delicate hooked detail of a cat's tongue pressed against glass squeaked through her mind, she lowered the marker, the tip itching with anticipation of its transfer.

Once again the nerve tingling glare shot through her, she pulled her eyes from the card.

He wasn’t much older than her, his dirty blonde hair had started to thin a little. Wayward tufts wavered as slowly, he shook his head, his lips forming the silent shape of words.

Don’t. Get. Bingo.

The stretched neck of his faded blue jumper fell forwards as the man rose, steadying his balance on the table. The long cuff of his misshapen lounge pants dragged over the floor with each shuffled step. He kept his head down, eyes fixed on the polished floor, stretching stiff legs. Reaching the chair opposite her, he paused, grasping the back, feigning breathlessness.

With a low glance around the windowless room, he sat down.

He placed his cards on the table, taking his time laying them out so each unmarked number was visible. Next to hers, his squares seemed bereft of satisfyingly splodged dots.

“You don’t want to win.”

He whispered the words, his lips barely parting as he murmured to her.

A razor edge of intrigue reverberated through her, cutting through the fog of concentration, the steady stream of numbers slipping out of her awareness.

“Isn’t that the point…?”

She paused, the mottled lid of her marker resting against her bottom lip. His cautious demeanour softened.

“You know what the numbers are, right?”

She glanced down at an “eighty-three”, inspecting her cards.

“Bingo numbers?”

“Look around… ”

Her gaze flitted between tables and faces, noticing the heavily dotted scores cards and corresponding blank stares - headlamps in absent, drooping faces. The more entranced in the game, the more missing each person seemed to be.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Face melt… mind rot… the numbers are taking our memories...”

His eyes landed on her hand, instinctively poised over the table.

“...what are you thinking about?”

The wet squeak of a pink tongue rang through her.

“A cat.. licking… something”

“Focus, hold it, that’s your memory, don’t let them take it from you.”

She jerked her hand away from the card, the sudden movement drawing the attention of a member of staff, the memory already slipping further away.

“ .. nineteen .. seventy two .. sixty-four ..”

The stream of numbers continued spewing out of the speaker. She had all three, her neck tingled with a probing gaze behind her.

“You still have to play,” he whispered next to her, “worst things await those who miss too many numbers in a row.”

A hurried tip splattered wipe-clean ink over the tables surface… what was that last one… sixty-four… or forty-six…? She had both… she hesitated.

A shadow loomed behind her, broad and burly, a firm hand gripped her shoulder, bony fingers grazing her collarbone.

“Maybe you two should try a game in the hall.”

Gosh this one could have gone many ways, there are so many elements to work with, and in the end I had to let certain ones go to get this close to the word count (529 in the end). It took a day of background mulling, and then as soon as I came back to the prompt, I knew how I wanted to work with it, and had to jot down some ideas before I was away for the weekend and flesh them out when I got back.

This was written as an entry to #finishthestory run over on the @bananafish page - head over for contests and all kinds of fun. This week has been opened by the dark prophet @f3nix who really knows how to set the bar, and hosted by dear @theironfelix - there is still a little time to enter so if you would have taken this opening another way head over to the post and give it a go.

Photo Credit by the wonderfully named Pixabay User Donations_are_appreciated who has nearly 700 images to chose from!