Eight chairs, eight souls, eight lives, eight lingering pasts, eight emerging futures, all seated around a table covered in green felt.  Tonight was poker night as it had been for three years now, here in this upstairs office over the Bouton's Bookstore and Cafe. 

The blue Bicycle playing cards, two fresh packs still in their cellophane sit at the center of the table. Chips are stacked at each place, five hundred dollars worth for each player, whites are one, red are five, blues are ten.  No credit, fifty dollar limit on each pot.  Through the three years, all eight have pretty much swapped their five hundred dollars even up, nobody's gone broke, nobody's gotten rich.

These are the stories of these eight poker players, all here sitting around the green felt, puffing cigars, smoking cigarettes, drinking wine coolers and Canadian Club whiskey.  And I suppose these are the stories of these eight poker players as they lay their bets, calculate their odds, and make their bluffs in the desperate lives they live.

They ante up, eight white chips clink into a pile in the middle of the green.

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Author guidance for This story

Each writer becomes one of the poker players and we add to our character's inner thoughts in turn... the interaction among them must NOT be aware of the inner thoughts of the others .... as the story develops the other players add the physical description of each player, staying true to prior descriptions ... we begin with reflections upon the day they have had before coming to the game ... let's have some fun ... Player # 1: AndieV Player # 2: Kevichella Player # 3: Eloosive Player # 4: Tip_A_Steinback Player # 5: Player # 6: Player # 7: Player # 8: RiverTalker

updated Nov 22 '08 by TheRiverTalker