The game begins. All the colored balls sit together, united, at peace, and completely vulnerable in the middle of the playing field. Their tranquil innocence is doomed.
From unknown lands, the cue ball arrives like a blitzkrieg, a Great White Hunter determined to break the alliance of the colored balls and tear them apart to be exterminated, one by one.
After the blessed peace has been destroyed forever, each player takes his turn as the Hunter. One attacks the solid colored balls - those ancient cultures still untouched by the hands of empire. The other goes after the stripes - the half-breeds, the mestizos, the mongrels; and removes them, one by one, from the bright green lands to the black, unlit Underworld.
The Hunter does not always attack directly. He can approach from any angle, jump over one ball to attack another, and even work himself into a spinning fury to better eliminate his victims. They call the last tactic English. Rudyard Kipling would be proud.
The Hunter's most dreaded strategy, though, is to use the colored balls to do his dirty work, pitting one against another. If a bystander stands in the way of his quarry, he will attack it first, so that, while fleeing, it charges head-on into the Hunter's prey, creating a horrible clash intended to drive the victim off the board. Occasionally, a particularly skilled Hunter can use this method to kill multiple prey with a single shot.
As the game draws to a close, and all of a Hunter's designated victims have been driven off the face of the Earth, a single task remains. Somewhere, unnoticed for most of the game, lies the Black 8-ball - the primal lord of the African savanna, the progenitor of all. The proud Hunter "calls" the hellish destination of his ultimate prey and triumphantly removes him from the game.
Forever. | 
