What is in hell? says the tall man with the tiny cue stick.
He asks this of the short man with the long cue stick. This man has the long cue stick but it is currently leaning against the pool table. His hands are already occupied by an empty pint. The beer is in his stomach. There is no beer left.
The balls have broken across the table. They have careened off corners and each other and settled into the places where they now lie. One of the balls entered into a pocket but neither man saw its number or color. They don’t care. It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter. At least not now.
The short man puts down the pint and replaces it with the long cue stick. The long cue stick towers above his head and the short man can only align it with much difficulty. The white ball is in his sight. The tall man elects not to watch.
His eyes instead turn to their surroundings. There are steps that must be descended in order to enter the bar. There are no windows underground. The only light that is on is above the table. The only sound is the shuffling of the short man as he struggles with the stick. Even that is more muffled than usual. The bar does not feel empty. But no faces peer from the darkness. If there is no beer left then where has it gone?
The light falls on them and the cue sticks and the balls but it mostly falls on the surface and curves of the table. The tall man looks down towards the green felt just as the short man hits the white ball and begins another chain reaction. The balls move and then briefly cover up a bit of the table before moving along on their way. The area that was green and table is now multicolored and ball and becomes green and table again. He wonders why they play a game that takes the table away from its natural state when the natural state of the table is green and covered in light and beautiful and free of all balls.
The short man lunges forward. The balls crackle like sparks off a flame as they collide. Bang and bang and bang and bang and bang. The tall man has never been shot. Two balls fall into pockets.
It is now the turn of the tall man and he methodically scans the table. The short man leans the long cue stick back against the table. He slowly picks up the empty pint and raises it to his lips. But there is no beer left.
The short man first looks down at his feet. He is barefoot and his big toe is just a little too large. Just a little. He sees that the feet of the tall man are normal. It must just be a trick of the light. Of course there is only one light. He thinks there is no light switch.
He resolves to begin the difficult process of looking up. It does not feel natural to look away at all from the game and the light is bright and hurts his eyes. But a human cannot avoid doing what it desires and the short man must look.
The light is in pain and alone and the short man is in the same pain and the same alone. The light is a cone pointing down at the table. The strange thing about the light is that it is not white. The green of the table reflects up so that the light itself takes on the permanence of this green. Everything the short man can see is bathed in the green light. Both men have some of the table on them and maybe just maybe just maybe within them.
The tall man lunges forward. The shadows of the balls swim in the deviations they cause in the green light above. Rainbow splashes of impermanent water. A flood and flood and flood and flood. The short man has never drowned. Three balls fall into pockets.
There is no beer left and the short man grabs the long cue stick because it is his turn. It is his turn again and the tall man cannot remember which turn they are on. It could be the second or the millionth. But it does not matter. It does not matter. The short man will take his turn and then pick up the empty pint and drink from the no beer left.
The tall man suddenly hears a noise coming from the darkness. There is no noise except the table and there is no light except the light on the table. The noise is lying and now the noise was a lie because the noise is gone. The tall man thinks about the noise that he did not hear. It was unlike any he has ever heard in his life. Those sounds being his voice and the shuffling of the short man as he struggles with the stick. He cannot find the words to describe this noise.
The table beckons as it always does. It cries and screams in words he cannot understand but is one of those words a name? A name a name a name. The table is lit and the balls are on it and the balls are unnatural and the balls block the screams and the short man hits the white ball and the table is always and always green and it has never been green
Nothing, answers the short man.
The eight ball slides into the pocket. Game over. The short man decides to re-rack the balls again to restart the game. The game the game. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out six balls and a full pint of beer. There is beer left. The tall man breaks.
Writer | Harry Finnegan ’28 | hfinnegan28@amherst.edu
Editor | Mikiko Suga ’27 | msuga27@amherst.edu