Chessman

Larry Brotherton awoke surrounded by darkness. There was nothing, anywhere. What had happened? He raised a hand to his head, and suddenly his hand was there, he could see it. He could see himself. And then, he could see the black, stone floor he was standing on. Its existence spread out from his feet, onward in every direction as fast as he was able to watch it go. Any walls or ceiling remained invisible. Not far from where he stood, there was another person. This black cloaked figure stood silently for a moment and then raised an arm, revealing a skeletal hand as the cloth fell away, and pulled its hood down, showing Larry its face. The black robed, skeletal figure of death stood there. A sudden, painfully intense fear swept through Larry, almost taking him off his feet.
“Yes, Larry Brotherton. You are dead. Dead and gone, completely.” It somehow spoke, although its jaw did not move. The skeleton’s voice was very masculine and formidable. “Your fear can do you no good, now.”
“I, I’m dead?” Larry spoke back, his mind raced with possibilities. “But, I don’t remember… I was just walking home with my…”
“Your life is finished.” The black robed figure spoke once more, interrupting his scrambled sentence. “It does not matter if you believe it true or not. You are dead, and you are here.”
“Where… where is here?” Larry looked all around. There was just darkness and the black stone floor that went onwards in every direction as far as he could see.
“This place is not a place.” The figure spoke the strange phrase. “It only ‘exists’ so that you may comprehend your current state. What it truly is cannot be explained to you.”
“Are you… Death?” Larry asked.
“Indeed.” The figure nodded, finally moving again and showing that it was not dead despite its appearance. “Come, we will play the game.”
“The game?” Larry stood in place and forced his shaking hands into his jeans pockets.
“Name your skill.” Death spoke.
“My skill?”
“Yes. The traditional game is chess, but if you prefer another, it can be arranged.” Death explained ever so patiently. Larry thought for a moment. He remembered hearing something like that a long time ago, a reference of the contest of life and death being a game of chess, but wasn’t that supposed to be a metaphor or something? Larry didn’t have a ‘skill’ that he could think of. He had never really excelled in anything. In fact, he was lucky if he wasn’t the worst at anything he tried. In school, he studied hard but his marks were always poor. He had no recognizable talents, or hobbies, and the people who had an opinion of him thought he was either really dumb or weird. He was familiar with chess and had even played it a few times, but always lost badly. He realized that he remained in thought while Death stood, staring at him, waiting for his answer.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He apologized humbly . “I don’t mean to waste your time.”
“Time does not exist for me, and does not exist for you any longer, either.” Death replied.
“Oh.” Larry’s brow furrowed and he thought some more. Larry was in college now and was failing half of his classes. He tried taking a multitude of different subjects. He took a class in mechanical engineering, but had trouble with the math. He tried taking art, but had trouble with drawing and painting. He just wasn’t any good at anything and his memory was poor. He really liked quantum mechanics, but when it came to actually taking a class in physics, he couldn’t keep up with all the formulas he had to memorize. He thought he understood philosophy, but when he took the classes, it turned out he was actually very ignorant. It seemed that the only thing he could do was completely misunderstand things in ways that no one could anticipate. Everything he ever did, and everything about him, even, was just ‘wrong’. He always made the biggest, weirdest mistakes with everything. His girlfriend kind of liked him, he didn’t know why, but he wouldn’t question such a good thing.
“What sort of game is this?” Larry asked the cowled figure.
“It is a contest. A symbol of your life and death. Choose your game, or forfeit and I shall take you to the next world now.”
“Um…” Larry didn’t want to forfeit, anyway. “I guess chess is as good as anything else.” Larry shrugged. Death waved his arm and a ragged wing of black cloth flowed behind it. Where there was once empty space, a chessboard was there. The small, cardboard game-board floated at a comfortable height directly in between the two players. The white chess pieces were on Larry’s side and the black were on the side of Death. It was a game board just like Larry had played on as a kid and seen in stores. It was a cheap, regular game that a person could buy at a thrift store. You’d think “Death himself” would have a nicer set.
“Uh, may I go first?” Larry asked.
“It could not be otherwise.” Death answered him. Larry looked down at the little, plastic figures. He understood how each piece moved and the way the game was generally played. He decided that it didn’t really matter which piece he moved first. He reached for a pawn, but before his hand arrived, his intention came to life on its own and the pawn moved, sliding by its own power.
“Your first move.” Death narrated. “Your first breath of life. You enter the world unknowing and unable. Yet even as you are born into the world, death stalks you, though it cannot yet touch you.” One of the black pawns slid forward as Death spoke.
“Wait a second.” Larry spoke up. “What happens if I lose this game?”
“Then I take you to be judged.” Death spoke.
“And what does that mean? I’m I going to heaven or hell? Or is there something else entirely? Will I be reincarnated? What if I stay here instead of playing at all? This place is probably better than hell.”
“What lies beyond, I know not. I am the deliverer of souls and do not know of their final destination. To refuse to play is to forfeit the game.” Death answered each question.
“Well, what happens if I win?” Larry asked.
Death remained silent.
“Has anyone ever won?” Larry spoke again after a moment.
“Long ago there… That is neither here nor there. Now, are we playing or not?”
“Yes, we’re playing. But… this game represents my life and death, like you said, right?”
“That is correct.” Death nodded slowly, his white skull gleamed and he continued to stare at Larry without eyes.
“So, each move that I make represents some part of my life, right?”
“The game is a symbol of what you cannot otherwise understand.” Death explained. “It represents your momentary victories and defeats and the inevitable end of your life.”
“So, my losing the game is the point of my death, right?” Larry asked.
“That is correct.” Death answered. Larry took a moment to study the board, as though he was about to make another move.
“Is my losing to you inevitable?” Larry asked.
“Yes.”
“Then why are we even playing if there is no chance of me winning?”
“It is something that you cannot understand. This symbol is the closest thing to it that a mortal mind can comprehend.” Death waved a skeletal hand, indicating the board. Larry stood in thought a moment more. He placed a hand on his chin and studied the board carefully.
“The game itself is my life.” Larry spoke to himself. “My losing the game is my death. Refusing to play is death. Death is inevitable. How can I defeat someone who has bested every grandmaster to ever play the game? There must be something else to it.” Larry thought intensely for a few minutes.
“Are you forfeiting the game?” Death asked him and crossed his arms tightly.
“Uh, no.”
“Then make a move.” Death demanded.
“There, that one.” Larry pointed to another pawn and it slid forward.
“Your second move.” Death began narrating again. “You start to grow stronger and gain a better foothold in life. You can now walk, and the world become open to new possibilities. But pain awaits your mistakes.” Death wiggled a finger and one of his bishops slid out to the far edge of the board.
“The board is my life.” Larry spoke the words as though his life depended on them. He knelt down and looked across the board, seeing it like he was the king. “I am the board. No, I am the game. The game has rules, there are rules and restrictions in my life. So only certain moves are possible. The only way to win is to subvert these rules. Not to cheat, but to… outthink them.” Larry muttered to himself in thought. Death remained silent.
“Move.” Death demanded. “I will not tolerate your stupidity.”
“Um, sure.” Larry agreed. Larry moved, mostly without thinking about it. He wasn’t thinking about the strategy of winning, so much as the game itself. Death moved to match him and Larry moved again.
After Larry’s eleventh move, the story of his life had advanced almost to his present life in college. And by the look of the position of the pieces, Death was ready to take his king on the next move, regardless of what he did. There didn’t appear to be anyway out of it, no matter how Larry looked at it. He was about to lose quite badly. He had lost a good number of his pieces without taking any of Death’s. He hadn’t moved his rooks, his bishops, his king or his queen. They were all either trapped behind his pawns or in no position to help.
“Move.” Death told him after he took too long. “Or do you forfeit?”
“I don’t forfeit.” Larry answered. “How did I die?” He asked after a careful moment.
“Make your move and I will tell you.” Death seemed to be grinning despite the obvious lack of flesh.
Larry knelt down again and examined the board carefully. There was no way to protect his king, not that he could see. If only it was possible to take the enemy king first. But, there were several of Death’s pieces in the way. His queen could do it, but it would take several moves and at the piece would probably be stopped or avoided. His queen was opposite the black king, if only there was a clear, straight path. He hadn’t given up in his thoughts about the nature of the “game”. There had to be something he was missing. There must be another way of looking at it, an entire different dimension of the game that he wasn’t getting. If this was a metaphor, then everything that made up his life was visually represented as the game. Whatever he needed to win was something that was beyond his comprehension.
“Do you forfeit?” Death asked.”No.” Larry answered. “Not yet.” He sighed and leaned back in his kneeling position. He almost collapsed with hopelessness. How could he see something that was beyond what he could see? He looked back at the floating game-board which was now above his head. There was another checkerboard on the other side. This one had numbers on the squares of the board, where as the other side did not. It was a common way for the boards to come when you bought a set. An idea for a move came to his mind and it happened as he thought of it. The white queen fell backwards and slowly slid across the bottom of the board. Larry raised his head in time to see the queen rise over the other side and topple the black king to stand in its place.
Death stood there in silence. Slowly, his head leaned forward and he looked down at the board. He stood like that for a long time. A timeless time. Larry stood. Was what he did considered cheating? He couldn’t remember ever hearing a rule against it. Maybe it really was the other dimension to the game that he had been looking for. The skeletal figure in the black robes shook a little, in a way that seemed to have a violent nature. Death looked up at Larry and snarled. Larry tried to draw back in fear but Death almost instantly swiped its arm forward, around itself and the flowing, black cloth of the robes filled the air. All Larry could see was the swirling blackness, and it seemed to get more black the harder he looked. He couldn’t feel or see or hear anything.
“Larry.” A whisper came to his ear. He tried to listen, but it hurt. The pain started to get stronger. It seemed almost illusionary at first but it became very real. It grew stronger and stronger until it overwhelmed him. He felt something explode in his chest. A thunderous boom accompanied it. It came again, and then again, being more painful each time. It was his heart, he realized. It was beating. The pain of life overwhelmed his very being. He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth, he breathed in. The deep breath hurt more than anything. The pain was so intense compared to the nothingness. He moved, and then he opened his eyes. The sharp light of the sun was there so he quickly shut them again.
“Larry? Oh my god! Larry!” His girlfriend was there. He couldn’t see her because his eyes were shut, but he recognized her voice and perfume. He felt her hair on his face. “Don’t move, okay. Someone’s already called an ambulance.” She spoke frantically and sniffed. She had been crying. Larry reached a hand up and felt the side of her face. He felt a gentle breeze blow over him and blow through her long, auburn hair as it brushed up against his arm.
“What happened?” Larry spoke. The pain still remained but he could feel better things too.
“Larry, you’ve been shot. Some guy, he just… Oh Larry…” She fell into tears. Larry opened his eyes again. There were trees nearby. He could hear the sound of traffic and the city in general. He leaned his head forward a little and looked down at his chest. There were two bullet wounds. Great bloody spots soaked his shirt. He reached down and poked one. It didn’t hurt, but the blood was real. He pulled his shirt back. There was a lot of blood, but no wound.
“No, don’t Larry.” His girlfriend tried to stop him, but then she saw it too. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Larry sat up, pain free, turned his head towards her and smiled. He smiled with a confidence that he had never felt before.