Finish the Story - Week #47/Try a Game in the Hall - @bananafish

Intro:
Try a Game in The Hall
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 Entry:

She frantically scanned the bingo card. Did it say “Sixty” or “Seventy” when the new stranger walked in the door?

This ravenous thought threatened to make her miss more numbers as the monotonous voice continued to echo them out undeterred.

“. . . seven, eight, nineteen . . .” The organ voice sounded.

She needed to make a decision fast. They were trying to trick her now. It would be so easy to mark the number “nine”.

Once again she reviewed the choices. If the humanoid had said “Sixty” then she could play on. If it were “Seventy” then she had Bingo. She must stop more numbers from being called out.

“BINGO!” She screamed.

All of the players in the hall ceased marking their cards, yet remained with their heads bowed. Only the new stranger who had not begun playing took notice, his large black eyes staring.

The humanoid in the center of the room let out a loud horn noise, and began spinning around. The orange rugs extending like tentacles from the center obelisk began to wave, rising up, and then splashing against the walls. It seemed as if colors moved all about in the excitement of the moment. Bingo had been declared, and she now waited for the celebration to end so that she could be announced the winner. However, she still didn’t know if the number she needed had been called out.

“Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” The humanoid now sounded in its dreadful dead whale tone. Repeating the line over and over as the lights in the room began to flash. Other lights not seen until now took the cue, so that the room became bathed in blue lights, then red lights, before green lights, and finally the regular room lights, all the while the white light sneaking in from the front door.

Just when she started to feel repulsed by this reward, the party ended.

“Will you please bring your card to the center of the room,” stated the humanoid without emotion.

She gathered herself, and took her card to the center of the room, where she inserted it into a slot marked for, “Winning Bingo Cards!”

“I’m sorry Miss, only to have Bingo you would need the number seventy.”

“Well isn’t that what you said before seven?”

“No seventy.”

“Yes, I know I need seventy. Only isn’t that what you called out before saying the number seven.”

“No, I said sixty.”

“Then it’s my mistake. Can I take my card back so we can all continue playing?”

“Very well,” the humanoid said with the programmed voice of annoyance. Her Bingo card then ejected from the slot for her to take back to her seat, and as she did everyone took notice of her, their eyes stabbing into her soul. Just when she thought she might cry, she noticed a cat licking the glass of the front door, and it made her smile with the feeling of hope.

She took her seat again ready to play Bingo. Everyone in the hall waited as the sound of whirling engine parts warmed up. Finally the humanoid in the center of the room began calling out numbers again.

“ . . .seventy, seventy-one, ninety-five . . .”

She marked seventy on her card. She now really had Bingo. Only the humanoid at the center of the room, and all of the players in the hall, continued to play this dull game with no notice at all.

Only the stranger looked her way again, his large black eyes questioning her as he raised his arms as if asking “why?”

“O, bugger!” She exclaimed setting her marker down. She got to her feet and made her way to the stranger. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. Then the two rushed for the front door, and made their way into the white light of the unknown . . .

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

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Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812

Red Roses - audiobook
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN