Crazy

[holiday_pirner]

The casino overwhelmed with light and sound. A Saturday night, the place was packed elbow to elbow, and Holly was in the thick of it. Bored, restless, and tired of hearing her own voice in her head, she had headed out to the noisiest place she knew.

The brunette walked the casino floor, trying not to spill the martini she had unwisely ordered. Mostly, she just liked them for the olives.

The rows of slots were alive tonight, and dice were thrown carelessly across tables. There was something to catch her eye everywhere she looked. She got fixated on a woman's dress, the entire thing made of dizzying sequins.

A hand caught her forearm, and she swore under her breath when a drop from her glass landed on her shoes. Holly looked up, a man standing there with the toothiest smile she had ever seen. It overwhelmed the rest of his features, which she didn't even bother to note.

"Hey," he said, and his voice blended into everyone else's so seamlessly that Holly couldn't be certain if he had really spoken at all. "Why don't you blow on these for good luck?" And he held the pair of dice in his palm. The brunette wasn't too far gone to notice the wedding band around his finger.

"Why don't you just," she began, adjusting the strap of her dress, "go blow yourself." Holly pulled away, and in her efforts to escape, bumped into the back of another brunette.

Lightly Scented Air

[rhiannon_lee]

Clink…clank…scratch…

Under a thick layer of mascara and liner, Rhiannon’s eyes lifted from the pages of her paperback to search out the sound. She sat slumped on a vinyl-cushioned bench in the laundromat, legs stretching into the aisle alongside her basket of detergent and dryer sheets. She leaned forward and squinted at a zippered hoodie bouncing ‘round and ‘round the front-facing dryer. Was it worthwhile to stop the machine and flip it inside out?

The Laundromat was humid and heavily scented: ocean breeze, spring bouquet, fresh cotton. A television was mounted in the corner and from it Rhiannon heard the subdued score of a soap opera punctuated by commercials for cleaning products or diapers. Headphones hung crookedly around her neck because she wasn’t sure how much juice was left in the cassette player’s batteries.

She set her book aside and knelt in front of the dryer to open it.

[Thread]