In a great green park at a small stool at a wooden table sat an old man who was mostly beard and a prickle of small black eyes, which were fixed on a thing that confounded him. According to the tides and currents of his hair he was frowning, and as he frowned he spoke, and he said “you there! What is this?”
Thus summoned, the six-year-old approached, soccer ball in hand. “That’s a chessboard,” he told the man cheerfully. “For chess.”
“I see, I see, I see,” the old man muttered. “What do you do with it?”
“Play it and win if you take the king. I’m really good, better than my dad.”
“I see, I see, I see. What is your name?”
“Simon.”
“Would you teach me this?”
“Okay!” said Simon, with the enthusiasm of someone very young being asked to educate someone very old.
And so they played twice, and the first game the old man lost.
“I fired a cannon out of my rook,” said Simon proudly. “So I can take that piece even though it’s too far away.”
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man. “I truly wish I had your inspiration. If I win this next game, may I borrow some?”
“Okay!” said Simon, who had tasted blood and wanted some more.
But this second game the old man won, for he was thinking one move ahead instead of Simon’s minus three and asked him a question about what his favorite animal was, which distracted him from escaping the trap laid for his king for just ten minutes too long.
“Shit!” said Simon sort-of-involuntarily.
“Thank you for the inspiration,” said the old man, and he shook Simon’s hand. “You may go.”
“Okay,” said Simon. He picked up his ball and wandered off into the grass again, where he considered the sky with a puzzled expression.
“All tired out already, tiny man?” asked his mother. “But we just got here! Whatcha thinking about? Tell me one of your stories.”
“I dunno,” said Simon. He stared at the blue sky and green trees and the moving cars and the white-capped water. “I dunno.”
***
The old man sat at his small stool and looked around himself and was pleased with what he saw and how he saw it.
“Hello!” he called to one piece of it in particular. “Would you care for a quick game?”
“Me?” asked the woman on a park bench, tie loose and scalp rumpled.
“Yes, excellent. Come on, don’t be shy. What’s your name?”
“Cathy,” said Cathy. “And it’ll have to be done before lunch break is, but I was in chess club back in high school so I can probably make this fast. When’d you start playing?”
“Today,” said the old man.
“I’ll spot you my queen and a move. That should be good.”
“I see, I see, I see. You know, I truly wish I had your skill. If I win, might you share some of it with me?”
“Well, if you want tips I can give those win or lose, if we’re REALLY speedy,” said Cathy. “But sure, why not? I can give you a secret or two if you win.”
And so they played, and initially the old man was on quite the backfoot before he made his move.
“I see, I see, I see,” he said, confidently moving his knight straight through six ranks in a single swoop, then seizing a rook and two pawns adjacent to it.
“Excuse me?” asked Cathy.
“I have mounted my knights on tyrannosaurs,” said the old man. “A tactical advantage.”
“Damnit,” said Cathy. “I don’t know HOW I missed that!”
She put up a good fight after that, but the old man reinforced his bishops with mammoths and then it was all over bar the mop-up.
“I concede,” she sighed. “I can’t believe I missed something so obvious.”
“On the contrary,” said the old man, shaking her hand. “Thank you for your skill. You may go.”
“Right,” said Cathy. “Right. I’ll just go back to work.” She shook her head and walked back to work, tripping over her own shoelaces every six steps all the way to her desk, where she forgot her password, account name, email address, the names of her coworkers, and her wallet.
“What do you think you’re DOING?!” demanded Claire across the aisle.
“My best, okay?” said Cathy. She reached for her coffee and watched as it bounced off her fingertips onto the floor. “My best.”
***
The old man cracked his knuckles bone by bone, tendon by tendon, and was pleased at all the ways he could count them. He stretched his vertebrae and divided them by his stiffness multiplied by his satisfaction, then got down to business.
“Hello!” he shouted from across the park. “Would you like to play?”
“Oh for the love of god let me have this,” complained the mayor from his picnic table, “this is the first midday bagel I’ve had time for in three months! I just wanted one before the snows came in, is that so much to ask for?”
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man, “but I don’t understand. You are the mayor. Why not simply do as you please?”
“I have authority, but every gram of authority comes with a kilogram of responsibility,” said the mayor. “And that’s mostly the responsibility to attend meetings.”
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man, thoughtfully stroking his beard. “But I truly do wish I had your authority nonetheless. Maybe if I win a game I could take up a little of it? To make it easier for you.”
“You have until I finish this bagel to set up,” said the mayor, pointing a finger and lox at him. “No deals.”
“What is your name?
The mayor shook his head. “Nobody pays attention to municipal politics anymore.” And he told him.
“Good. If you chew fast you will finish it exactly on time,” said the old man. He was correct.
They played, and the mayor might have stood a chance, but things took a turn in the midgame.
“You can’t do that,” declared the old man serenely, as the mayor moved his rook to take his queen.
“What? Why?”
“I severed the supply lines to your troops sixteen turns ago, when I moved my h-pawn off the board and into your backlines. Each move since then has taken place on six simulated five-dimensional boards in my head, reconstructing all social and economic structures represented by this abstract battlefield. Your rook can barely withstand siege, let alone afford a sortie. Your knights cannot fodder their horses and your pawns will revolt against you and flee the field to look to their own before the next turn is out. Will you concede your crown gracefully to me or prolong your people’s suffering?”
The mayor sighed and tipped over his king, which went clack.
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man, shaking his hand briskly. “I’ll get back to you on this. Have your people get in touch with mine.”
“Okay,” said the mayor. “What do I do now?”
“Are you still here? Go home. Take a hike.”
“Alright,” said the mayor. He gave a little bow and began the commute to his house, step by loafered step along the bike trail, suit flapping in the wind off the water.
***
The old man kicked back in his seat, snapped his fingers, and sighed as a passerby wordlessly draped her big comfy coat over his thin shoulders. He pointed and a cigar was placed in one hand, a donut in another.
He took a puff. He raised the donut to his mouth.
“Yo, dipshit!”
She was big and white-headed and yellow-mouthed and strong-limbed and her eyes were pale yellow under a fierce brow.
“This is MY park, asshole!” she told him, voice echoing like a gunshot. “You think you can set up in here without me? Think twice!”
“I see, I see, I see,” smiled the old man toothily (and gummily). “You know… I truly wish I had your confidence. Would you care to wager it?”
“Ack! Come at me, loser!”
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man. His fingers moved over the board with the speed of a pianist’s. Pawns and rooks plopped from the sky into place like whalefalls into sediment “What is your name?”
“None Of Your Business and Eat Shit.”
“I see, I see, I see,” said the old man, his grin growing in width and terribleness.
“Tell me, have you ever played chess?”
“Ack. What’s chess?”
“Chess is –”
“Don’t care, I’ll kick your ass it at.”
“I see, I see, I see. Would you prefer white or black?”
“White and fuck you. Ack! What’s that question mean anyways?”
“Which colour your pieces are.”
“Pieces of what, shit?”
“I see, I see, I see,” chuckled the old man with a noise like tar bubbling. These,” and he held up his black queen, “are chess pieces. Each time we take a turn, we may try to capture them, and whoever is unable to prevent capture of their king wins the-”
She smacked the queen out of his hand so hard his fingers stung.
The old man stared at her. “You-”
She snatched up his knight and swallowed it. “I win,” she coughed. “Ack! Ack! Ack!”
“That’s not allowed, that’s not fair, and that’s a KNIGHT!” seethed the old man. He pointed furiously, finger white with rage. “THAT’S the king!”
She ate the king too.
“You cannot win by EATING THE PIECES!”
“Says who?” she told him. “You? Fuckoff.”
“I see,” intoned the old man, and his prickling little eyes seemed barbed in the pale grey light of the overcast afternoon, “and I see, and I see, and I say, by mine authority, by mine mastery, and by mine grasp of matters intangible, all of which that I hold (within Myself, which I hold perpetually and indefinitely and indefatigably), that you are violating the terms of this agreement, promised by your own named soul and staked upon that within which you hold above all else.” His finger steadied, its blood flow stabilized, and the rustle of the leaves in the park died down to almost nothing at all. “This game you shall abide by, in the name of all that is and all that you are.”
She flipped the board over into the old man’s face.
“You VERMIN!” he shrieked, quite losing hold of himself.
Pressing her advantage, she jabbed the old man in the himself.
With the cry of a jackal he dropped it, with the cry of a baby it burst, and all that the old man was that had been taken from others broke loose and spilled free out into the world to race home to its owners as rivers race to join the sea. The old man howled at this and grasped with his bony hands, and she jabbed them too, and his face, and his beard, and his glittering eyes until he rose up and fled wailing into the sky upon his cane, pursued all the way.
Simon stirred from his place on the park bench beside his mother as he watched them leave, wide-eyed. Something warm slipped back into his chest, but he scarcely noticed.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, small guy?”
“I just saw a man lose at chess to a seagull.”
“Oh thank christ,” said his mother, and she hugged him and bought them fries on the way home.