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I meant to go just once.
A friend invited me, and I went along without thinking much of it.
I didn’t even know how to hold a cue.
Almost nothing went in.
And yet, the following week, I was back.
No one had invited me.
It wasn’t that my schedule had opened up.
Before I knew it, I was getting off at Kannai Station.
I had to laugh at myself a little.
I couldn’t forget that one shot
Last week, exactly one ball went in.
Just as I aimed it, the ball was swallowed by the pocket.
Tok.
Just one ball.
I had missed every other one.
But the feeling of that moment stayed with me.
The ball in front of me moved exactly as I had pictured it in my head.
Maybe I wanted to taste that feeling one more time.
Today, too, almost nothing goes in
I stand at the table.
I aim.
I miss.
I change the angle a little.
I miss again.
“Why?”
The word almost slips out of me.
I think I’m stroking the same way each time, but the ball rolls off in a different direction every time.
Maybe the cue was striking the ball just a hair off.
Maybe I hit it a little too hard.
I don’t know.
But somehow, “I don’t know” didn’t feel bad.
If anything, it made me want to hit one more.
The moment it goes in
Hit enough balls and the moment comes again when one goes in.
The aim is true, the ball runs straight, and it drops into the pocket.
Tok.
In that moment, something bursts inside me.
Not enough to pump a fist.
Not enough to cry out.
But something is, without a doubt, fulfilled.
And today, after the ball dropped, the white cue ball rolled slowly on and stopped near the next ball.
Luck, I think.
But the instant I imagined, what if I could do that on purpose — I already wanted to hit the next one.
I can’t stop thinking
On the train home, I caught myself thinking about the table.
Maybe that ball would have gone in if I had hit it a little thinner.
After the cue ball hit the rail, why did it go that way?
Maybe that layout would have been easier from the other direction.
I haven’t asked anyone.
I haven’t looked anything up.
My head is just thinking on its own.
Setting up the table again, in my mind.
Thinner this time.
Fuller this time.
Off the rail this time.
I hadn’t felt like this in a long time.
At work, I think in order to produce the right answer.
But now, I think because I want to know.
I watched good players for a little while
At the back of the hall, two regulars were playing a match.
I watched for just a little while.
One of them got down and shot.
The ball dropped.
Only the cue ball kept going, traveling a long way around the table.
It struck a rail and came to rest, slowly, right beside the next ball.
I caught my breath.
“Why does it stop there?”
Even after I went back to my own table, I kept thinking about that shot.
Had that player seen that path in their head before they shot?
What I couldn’t see, that player could.
I couldn’t tell whether that stung, or whether I envied them.
I only thought, “Someday, I’d like to play a shot like that.”
The third time came
Before I knew it, I was back again.
The third time.
I think a few more balls go in now.
Last week, out of ten shots, maybe one went in.
Today, about one in three goes in.
In numbers, perhaps it is a small change.
But the feeling when I stand at the table has changed a little.
More than last week, there are moments when I can tell: hit it here, and it goes there.
When the ball moved the way I had pictured, it felt as if the small world on the table had become, just a little, my own.
I still don’t know why
Why do I keep coming back?
I still don’t know why.
But that’s all right.
Each time there is one less thing I don’t know, there is one new “I don’t know.”
Wanting to see what comes next, I stand at the table again.
Next week, too, I’ll probably end up coming back.
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