A Crisp Click of Slate

I sat cross-legged on the floorboards this morning because waking up to stare at baseboards makes a fellow want a quiet, tactile puzzle, and right under the bottom shelf rested an old travel set of heavy composite domino tiles stacked inside an open pine slide-box. Now, pressed melamine tiles have this wonderfully dense, cool heft—almost like polished quarry slate from an old municipal billiards hall, which always makes an honest clacking sound when you handle them right—so rather than lining them up for a tedious counting game, my immediate instinct told me to brace my boots on the oak planks, pinch the double-six tile between both palms, and set it upright on its narrow edge. With a light flick of my knuckle, I sent it tipping forward against the next piece, sparking a brisk, rolling ripple of muffled clacks that ended in a tidy, overlapping fan across the wood grain.