Author’s note: I found this challenge extremely hard, so that means I need to work on this skill. I depend too much on dialog and characters thinking about everything to convey surroundings. I always discover how I can improve my writing when I take on a weekly writing “assignment”

Thanks Daily Post Writing Challenge !

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Lacy looked around the small office while waiting for coach “Coup” Cooper, to wrap up a phone call.  “Have a seat, I’ll just be a second” he whispered, gesturing to the handset. He moved his free hand with an opening and closing motion. That was ten minutes ago.

She wondered which seat he referred to. There were two chairs in the room, a swivel one with a warped back that coach occupied, and the other was piled high with magazines and newspapers. A half-eaten meatball sandwich sat on top of the leaning tower of paper, looking (and smelling) like exploded pizza.

The front wall of the office, including the door, was glass. The room stayed dark regardless of light shining from the gym beyond.  “This is Rocky’s gym”, Lacy thought. She almost expected to see him at the punching bag, or in the roped off platform ring. This gym was not a popular franchised business. There were no aerobic or Jazzercise classes offered here.

The non-glass walls had faux dark-walnut paneling that mocked the laws of physics by sucking up all available light.  A gray metal bookshelf  facing Coup’s desk, held boxing and body-building related paperbacks and VHS tapes. The four shelves were beyond dinged, and not aligned with each other. A dusty VHS player waiting on the bottom shelf for someone to use it. On the end of the 3rd shelf,  sat a lovely ceramic pot, with long-dead flowers – it was the finishing touch that made the room totally depressing.

By the time Coup hung up the phone, Lacy had mentally reorganized the room and was anxious to start working on it.  If she got the job, that is.

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