Story Lottery - #31 Scrabble (Bonus Prompt)
Ever since middle school, they'd taken to playing scrabble in the park every Friday at 5pm. They began doing it in the summer, when the sun stayed in the sky long intot he day, and when it became winter, he'd walk her home. It wouldn't do for her to walk home alone at night.
Sometimes they kept score, and sometimes they didn’t. Either way, they would carefully ponder their letters and try to create crosswords. The plinking of tiles on the board became a familiar sound to them, the smoothness of the tiles natural. And when they were done with their game, they would pack up: fold the board, place it in the cardboard box, the tiles next, and then carefully search the ground around them for any stray tiles.
When they enter high school and drift apart, they still manage time on Friday evenings for just the two of them. There’s something comforting about the regularity of it, and even if they spoke less, that was fine with them; words were unnecessary when you had a board of letters before you.
College was nearing, and they wondered what would become of their scrabble games.
“The internet,” they said, “we’ll play together there.” And to seal the promise, they linked their pinkies together, and laughed at the silliness of it.
Both of them ended up returning to their hometown, and after all the friends, jobs, careers, and marriages had happened, they still played scrabble on hot Friday nights, and he still walked her home, only now her husband and his wife joined them. And they walked in the summer nights down the sidewalks, the letters plinking in its box beside them.