by owencarpenter-zehe

You are a man; a man on the taller side of the man spectrum. You have shoulder-length black hair, to accompany your generally dark-colored wardrobe. Usually adorning black pants and if you are  feeling you would mix things up, you wear an orange beanie. You have finally finished all your morning classes, and now you have two hours to kill.

You enter the bottom floor of the Davis center, your home away from home. Hanging off your left shoulder is your dilapidated, beaten to all hell, probably yellow, JanSport backpack. Slung over the right shoulder is a sleek, black leather bag with silver hardware. It stands out as a rectangular prism from heaven, capable of holding only the most precious of materials. You approach the billiard tables noticing all the fools and amateurs playing your beloved sport. You place your materials on the chairs along the exterior wall that shelters Davis Center students from the bitter cold outside. Carefully you open the side pocket of your backpack and pull out a pink three-finger glove, a glove only known by the most experienced billiards player. Gliding it ever so preciously upon your own thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger. 

You next turn to your leather bag, unzipping it horizontally an almost ethereal glow begins to emit from it. You remove the two pieces that make up one cue: The front and the butt (IDK what they are actually called). The queue itself is magnificent, worth many hundreds if not thousands of dollars. With inlays of black diamonds and diagonal lines that give it a sense of class and prestige. Finally chalking up the tip to provide peak smacking performance. This is no ordinary Davis Center pool cue.

You ransom your cat card for those devine and beautiful sixteen billiard balls. When you look into them racked ever so perfectly on the green table, you can see the whole universe in front of you. You have no idea the different possibilities and/or journey the balls might take you on. Your friend, who is dressed suspiciously just like you, is whom you are competing with. Billiards is a game of warfare, utterly taxing to both the mind and the body. After this game is over, you will have either completely physically and spiritually dominated your opponent, or they will do that to you. It is glove against glove, cue against cue, man against man.

After a drag-out, knuckle-busting fight for your life you are finally on the eight ball. You select the bottom left corner pocket, a more difficult shot than it needs to be, but you want to show off. You carefully calculate which of the nine zones you could hit the cue ball in; selecting the tried-and-true middle for maximum power. With a loud crack, you send the ball flying around the table, detonating as it strikes the eight ball. The eight ball swirls around, spinning like crazy and bouncing off all corners of the table until finally, it sinks into the bottom left corner pocket. You are the victor, but this is the Davis Center so there are no spoils.

That one match took the entire time you had between classes. You carefully repack all your belongings and objects, retrieving your cat card along the way, feeling proud and accomplished. You leave your temple of billiards and re-enter the world of the normal folks. You go to math class. For those two hours, you were a god, but now you’re just another man in math class. And you suck at math.

Categories: around town, mar 1, owen carpenter, samantha stillman