[One of the things that main character had with him when he was transported to strange and wonderful world in need of saving was a chess set. He's not actually good at playing, but he likes it anyway. After explaining the rules, and a bit of European history (once you say en passant is French you have to explain what "French" means) he and a native play a game.]
And then, like that, the game was over.
It hadn't actually ended yet, but it was clear I'd lost. After a series
of checks pushed my king across the board, I made a stupid mistake. I
blocked her queen with my rook, I figured either she'd have to back
up and give me some breathing room, or she'd take the rook
sacrificing her queen in the process and maybe, just maybe, I could
use the loss of her queen to pull off a draw.
Which would all be well and good if not
for the fact that the only thing protecting the rook was my king, and
as soon as I moved it I realized it was threatened from two different
directions. She could take the rook with her queen and put me in
instant checkmate, or she could take it with a bishop and toy with me
a bit. Either way I'd lost.
“It's not fair,” I said.
“What's not fair?”
“That this is your first game of
chess. It's not fair that you're already so much better than me.”
She seemed confused, “Are you
considered a very good chess player by the standards of your world?”
“No. I'm considered a horrible chess
player by the standards of my world. But I'd like to think that I'm good by the standards of
people who have never played the game before.”
She smiled, “I have my strengths, you
have yours.”
And suddenly all of my anxieties came
pouring out. “No. I don't. I don't have strengths. I'm nothing.
I'm no one. I'm...” I wasn't sure what to say and then I snatched
a pawn from the pile of pieces she had captures, “I'm this. This
is me. You're acting like I'm going to make some huge difference to
this world but I'm not that kind of person. I don't have any strengths. I'm just a pawn, except I don't promote when I get to the
other side of the board.”
“What do you do?”
“I don't know. Hang my head and walk
home maybe.”
She held out her hand. “May I see
you?” I put the pawn in her hand. She looked it over. Then
turned her attention back to the board. “Let me ask you something,
who is going to win?”
“You are.”
She put the pawn on the board,
threatening her queen and guarding my rook. “Now who is?”
Whether she took the rook with the
queen or the bishop I'd have her queen, and I'd have it with my king
still against the side of the board, without her queen threatening it
that was actually a pretty safe space, she'd have to shuffle some pieces to put me in check again so my position would be stronger
than if I'd been able to capture with my king like I'd intended and
from there... I cut off that line of reasoning. She wouldn't risk
her queen. At first I thought that she'd just use the queen to take
the pawn and push everything a move or two down the line, but then I
realized that the pawn was protected.
I'd given up on the knight a while
back. I'd actually tried to trade it for another piece and she hadn't
taken the bait, the trade was long since made impossible, and she could take it whenever she wanted to with impunity, and just about everywhere it could move would lead to immediate capture, and nowhere it could move was particularly useful anyway. But now one of those places had a pawn in it.
If she wanted to protect her queen
she'd have to retreat, and her pieces cluttered up the board, there
were only so many places she could go, and none of them set up for an
immediate attack, in fact... I looked at where my few remaining
pieces were. Her king was boxed in by several of her own pieces, her
position wasn't really all that good. The only thing that had
stopped me from exploiting if before was being in check every damn move leading up to that point.
If I wasn't then...
I thought about every move she could
make. I closed my eyes. I opened them again. I looked at the board
in silence. And finally I answered her question of who as going to
win, “I am.”
She tapped the pawn, “You
made all the difference. Because right at this moment, you're," she tapped the pawn again, "the
most important piece in the field. It doesn't matter if you're not
the strongest, it doesn't matter that you're not the most
experienced, or the most skilled. It doesn't matter that half the
time you don't know what you're doing.”
“More than half the time,” I said.
“You're in the right place, at the
right time, and more than that you're completely unexpected. No
one's plans included you being here. No one's strategy is designed
to cope with you. The other side has been factoring me into their
plans since I was four years old, and we've been paying as much
attention to them. But you, you've just been dropped on the board in
the middle of the endgame.
“This is you,” she said, again
gesturing to the pawn, “And you can change everything.”
I thought maybe she was taking the pawn
metaphor too far. Maybe I underestimated the pawn, but that in no
way meant that I was underestimating myself. Just because a pawn wasn't useless didn't mean that I wasn't.
“Unless, that is,” she said, “you'd
rather hang your head and walk home.”
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Well said!
ReplyDeleteIt's beautiful.
ReplyDelete