The silence round the green table

An original literary non-fiction-style account of watching a close snooker game in a small club.

From the doorway, the room appeared to be waiting for someone to speak. Four people stood around a green table, and a fifth leaned over it with a cue held almost level with the cloth. A light hung low above them, leaving the walls dim and the coloured balls unusually definite.

The player straightened without taking the shot. One spectator shifted the weight of his body to the other foot, then became still again. The movement seemed enormous in a room which had made so little allowance for movement. Somewhere near the entrance, a teaspoon touched a cup. Its owner caught it at once, as if a second small sound might change the result.

I could see the intended line only after the player walked round the table and bent at another angle. He looked at one ball, then another, then towards a pocket which remained dark beneath the bright edge. The cue did not supply a dramatic gesture. It travelled a short distance and stopped. A coloured ball moved, touched the side and continued more slowly than I expected.

For a moment, everyone followed it with an attention which made its last few inches seem longer than the rest of the journey. It stopped short. Nobody cried out. The player’s mouth changed slightly at one corner, and the spectator who had shifted his feet looked down at his shoes.

The other player stepped forward. Someone beside the wall breathed out with enough force for me to realise she had been holding the breath. The first player placed his cue against a chair and picked up his cooling tea. The table remained lit with exactly the same confidence, offering no sign that the smallest movement in the room had just mattered so much.

How does the writer present the tension surrounding the shot?