Prompt: What do They Want

Writing Challenge Day 5 of 30

Joe looks at everyone like an opponent in a zero sum game. Trying to draw out their hidden motivations and twist them into his edge. Trying to pay attention to their tells to take advantage of them at a later time.

The two things he still needs: money for the buy-in (duh) and mastery over his emotions and his own tells. Juvenile detention is a great place to work on the latter. Every interaction is a high-stakes opportunity to practice persuasion while hiding intent. As for money, none of the suckers here have a single cent.

For the money problem, Joe will need to think of a more conventional solution. He supposes he’ll need to actually work to save up money.

(A teen in juvenile detention; Wants to win the World Series of Poker)