A Game of Chess
by Daniel Beadle - Thursday, August 30, 2007
Dylan stares out the window in his robe as the high-priced prostitute he has just fornicated with for the past twenty minutes amuses herself in setting up a chessboard.“Would you like to play?”
Dylan sighs as he looks out the window. “When I was a younger man, I used to derive some degree of pleasure from that game.” He looks down with a touch of nostalgia. “So much that I used to enjoy has become trite.” He turns to look at her. She smiles coyly. Yes, she is very well paid.
Dylan puts his hands on the back of his chair and has a glazed over look as he stares at the board. “Like chess, the whole course of human action is a mathematically predictable element.” He looks into her eyes, those hazel eyes with flecks of gray and gold.
“You are an attractive woman," Dylan continues. "Attractive enough that a few thousand of any man’s dollars will allow him to savagely penetrate that bleeding orifice that most humans mistakenly call a vagina. This gives you an heir of confidence and a misled sense of sexual supremacy that makes you bolder than most.
"However, the very nature of your lifestyle, and your ‘career’ is so stigmatized in our current society that you do have an underlying degree of… guilt? No. Shame.” Dylan smiles at his analysis, ignoring the offense that the female has suddenly taken.
“That is your life in aggregate. But the analysis of your day, of all those random bits of positive and negative stimuli, from the moment you regained a conscious sense of the world to the moment that you almost achieved an orgasm but faked the unfelt result for the benefit of your paying customer, would lead to more telling conclusions about your present state of mind.
"You are in a pleasant state of mind, hence the introduction of the chessboard. A plethora of addition clues are readily available, from the pinhole tear in your stockings to the vague smell of gasoline that is barely perceptible beneath that expensive conditioner you use to eliminate your mild dandruff problem, and your perceived issue with split-ends that is in actuality a neurosis you barely acknowledge.” Dylan lowers his eyes to the chessboard.
“You are right-handed. The most obvious indicator of that occurred thirty-two minutes ago. Given the nature of your day, the elements of your personality, and even that genetic code that served as the basis for everything that you currently are, your mind is itching to make a Latvian Gambit.
"No small surprise, especially since your entire familiarity with the game of chess is derived from computer games rather than real-life scenarios. It’s an aggressive opening, but dubious as well, seeing as how it invariably leads to wild complications.
"As unpredictable as this might seem, it is not, and after I mimic your initial movement, you will cautiously move additional pawns toward the center. I will sacrifice a knight to one of said pawns, which will open you up to a check. This will then force you move your king out of harm’s way. I will put my bishop into play, and move it rapidly between two of your pawns. You will underestimate this move, however, because my queen will remain at the board’s center. Using your bishop to eliminate mine, you will have a false sense of confidence that will be destroyed when you realize that I’ve slowly pried your king out of concealment into a discovered check.
"With the beginning of the endgame, you will be so distracted by playing defense that you’ll hope for a stalemate that will never come. My queen will hover near your king in anticipation of the checkmate, but your remaining pieces will inhibit my movement. Unfortunately for you, the queen you will use to protect your king will actually trap him, and limit his movement considerably.
"The pawn that kept guard of your king will be briskly taken out by my rook, and that will be checkmate.” He squints at the board. “In fourteen moves.”
