He wrapped his brittle thumb and index finger around the crown of his Queen piece, gripping it firmly. Our eyes met, but he did not move her to strike. He held her there and stared into my face, several yards off. His voice came out faintly and I could hardly make out his words anymore. Still, he continued to speak, and I straddled the edge of my seat, straining to understand his words. As I stretched out my neck to listen, I found myself rising to my feet and creeping slowly toward the man. Our eyes remained locked as I drew closer. He spoke without pause, assuming I could hear him, no doubt.
It was only when I reached my place opposite him at the board and knelt before his hunched frame, that I could hear his discourse clearly. I realized then he was not addressing me, per say, but running through a sort of narrative aloud.
“I had a wife,” he muttered. “She sold goods with her father in the market. The first time I saw her, my heart leapt in my chest and I knew she was the one. Three years we were married, and a child on the way. I had been a fisherman by trade, but took over her father's place in the market when we wed and he retired.”
A tear came from his eye and lingered on his flakey cheek. I averted my eyes, trying to avoid the image. When I looked down, I saw that his fingers were bleeding from gripping the sharp crown, and his other hand was bruised by his own weight. Glancing back at his face, though, I could see that it was not the physical pain which brought him grief. His heart ached, and he was laying out before me the reason, like a scroll.
“Three years married, and a child on the way. That's when she came to my shop, the little girl with green eyes. She couldn't have known, she was so young and scared. She and her mother had come to the market once or twice before. It had been months since I had seen them, but she recalled my kindness. That's why she came to me, she said. Her mother was sick and she asked me to come see her. Damn that kindness! I did go, and caught her pestilence before even crossing the threshold.”
Our eyes were set on one another again and I found myself unable to move, mere inches from the bandaged face of this walking deadman. My heart ached in rhythm with his, and my lips began moving in unison with his covered mouth as the narrative progressed.
“They say six feet from a leper is safe, a hundred feet is best. So they sent me here when the mother was found dead a few days later. My shop was replaced. My wife was tested for the disease and, praise God, came out clean. But the child was stillborn because of the tests and this drove my wife insane, without me there to comfort her. So now I am here in exile, with my home just out of reach, and all that was my life – my kingdom – now taken from me. And my body fails me as well, so that I have nothing. I have nothing but this eye and nose, and a few simple fingers... and these fail me slowly even now as we speak.”
His left hand, which had been leaning hard on the edge of the board, then reached up and clenched my shoulder. I pulled back on impulse, but could not escape his grip. Like the Queen in his other hand, I was now at the mercy of these frail fingers. His right eye widened and the bandages stretched as he raised his forehead with excitement.
“My friend, our kingdoms are burned to the ground before they are even built. This world, and these shells wandering in it, will fail us. Our fingers will break and mountains will fall into the sea, hearts will stop beating and stars will burn out. And there's not a thing we can do but watch.”
A breeze picked up and I could feel my lungs deteriorating with each inhale of sand and stench. My hands moved quickly to cover his right and I tightened my grip, feeling the Queen's crown cut into my skin as well. I was infected now, and I had been since he first moved that Knight at the start of our game. The whole play had been the image of what had happened to my opponent's life, and now what was happening to mine. I drew closer, still clutching his hand and the Queen, until our noses nearly touched.
“Then why play the game?” I whispered, tears now rising in my eyes.
“Because,” he said with a kind of peace in his voice. “While everything else is dying, one thing remains alive. It's called Hope. It's really the only thing we have dominion over. We alone choose its fate. We can kill it... or we can allow it to live and stir up something within us called Life, completely independent of the ephemeral and detritus. Hope – Life – drives us to carry on... to play the game, my friend. That's why... And anyway, why not?”
The last glimpse of sun light fell behind the western hills as we together shifted the bloody Queen to her respectful place and declared with flaccid breath, “Check-Mate.”
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