the never ending mancala turn

The girl sat down with her drink and opened the one piece of play equipment on the table, an old backgammon board. She picked up the smooth pieces one by one and slid them across the felt. The lanky jagged triangles screamed, “challenge me!” and she could only scream back, “how?!” The board game was more high end than she knew; deep wooden pockets and barriers lined the sides of the board, a trait that backgammon would-be’s would’ve appreciated. In trying to make sense of how to combine the circular plastics with the layout of the board, she decided on a game of mini-mancala. With four pockets per side, the girl began dumping pieces one at a time, first on a set of triangles, then on a second set of triangles, then on the side receptacle. She slipped them into their compartments; they all slipped in and compartmentalized. Until she landed her last piece into a full pocket, and scooped up the pieces for another round. The stunted board allowed her move to keep going—she never seemed to land into any of the empty pockets, when they were empty. The four pockets-to-a-side seemed to trounce all three or eight or six laws of physics, as the turn never terminated. She counted and captured all evening at the back table in the bar, thirty seven minutes into the first turn, followed by two hours twenty minutes into the first turn, followed by four hours, two minutes to close into the first turn. The never-ending batters-up; putting in all the highballs and the headbands, the lowballs and the skins; she was going to the island!; and the monotony never made her feel so low, but so stuck. Stuck in some game, huh. The barkeep, a man in dreads they called Magic, shut the board on her fingers and said last call.