Victory and Defeat

The hall was utterly silent. Only the deliberate grinding of the answering cards could be heard as they shuffled and hopped inside the metal cage. A moment of truth: the fate between the highest prestige and victory or an assured degrading loss was rocking and churning inside the shiny cage. Variable as the ocean, the card chosen could be likened to benevolent land or a tempest in that sea. For the players the next move was everything; time stood still. The essential numbers and letters frantically played and replayed in each of their minds while their eyes never left the silver, spinning cage.
Their wheelchairs were set on lock and the players had on their best visors and caps. Some players, were even wearing their past earnings, flaunting war metals of battles past. Would all of it be for nothing? The next hero was about to be announced: they could feel it in the air. The game had been too long and so many needed just one more to attain the ultimate prize. One woman, absentmindedly clutched the plastic table before her with a strength the knobbed arthritis in her hands was unaware of.
Suddenly, the clanking stopped. The young woman who had been churning, unhooked the squeaky cage and thrust her hand inside smiling as if to lighten the tension in the room. The decision was drawn, the fate was counted; no more wishing could alter the letter and number on that card. Her mouth parted to begin the verdict, and the entire hall instinctively leaned forward an inch or two. The echo of her screeching voice reverberated within each of the players' eardrums. A single man let out a huge 'bingo' and leapt for joy with little help from his cane. The reaction was instant: hope to disappointment to fake happiness to disgust. The whole ordeal lasted a minute. But with more than nine decades of experience behind many of the players each minute is a lifetime and a new chance to meet success or, more often, failure. Words of congratulation were spoken with empty eyes and forced denture smiles. However keen eyes, those of jealousy, squinted at the man's prize. A new bingo hat, it was his purple heart and bragging right. In so many years and so many battles of winning and losing, even with hundreds of years of experience between them, the people of the hall could not fight the allure and fall victims to the untamed beast that is luck.




Short story by Coneja Linda
Read 709 times
Written on 2009-08-10 at 17:28

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