A Game of Chess

In a library an old man sits down to play chess.

An old man sits at a table with a chess board in front of him. A young girl sits on a bench, phone in front of her messaging her friend in France. The old man picks up a printed packet of paper with shaking hands.

After staring at the packet for a long minute, the old man puts it down he moves a pawn on one side forward two squares. The girl leans forward as though she were in a high-speed race instead of a library. 

Next comes the horse, that magical piece that even the queen can’t copy its move. Jumping out past the pawns that would block other pieces. The girl shakes her head at the phone and glancing at the old man playing against himself remembers for a moment her older brother teaching her to play. 

The man’s shaking hands knock over a few piece and painstakingly he places them back up. The girl turns her turns her attention back to her phone she smiles to herself as she types a response.

The pawn takes a pawn, the horse takes the pawn. The man’s hands tremble worst than before, he looks around perhaps wondering if there is someone who would play with him. The girl is intent on her phone now; her friend sent her a video she had to watch. 

The man’s trembling hands start to pick up, first putting the packet away, then taking handfuls of pieces and dropping them back in the box, had anyone been listening they would have heard the sound of dreams breaking as the pieces hit the bottom of the box.

Reviews

[JPDonelan]

A rather interesting short piece with a nice bit of social commentary without being too heavy handed. I liked some of the imagery and descriptive way of putting some lines, the first two sentences in the third paragraph are my favorite.

With that, I must say there are some grammatical issues. Some of them are missing commas, which can harm the reading of a sentence. Lets take the first sentence of the second paragraph: "After staring at the packet for a long minute the old man puts it down he moves a pawn on one side forward two squares." The series of words "After staring at the packet for a long minute" serves as an introductory phrase, and should have a comma after "minute". This breaks up the sentence, introducing a momentary pause that makes the line read smoother.

The word "come" in the first sentence of the third paragraph should be "comes." Admittedly, I forget the ruling on why it should be that way right now and I'm sure I'll remember when it is no longer relevant.

Some of the lines and phrasing are also a bit clunky. Take one of the ones I like: "Next come the horse, that magical piece that even the queen can’t copy its move." Changing up the phrasing of the second part of the sentence would tidy up the read while retaining the meaning and doing minimal damage to the creative flourish that I liked in the first place. The option which jumped to me most readily was "that magical piece whose movements not even the queen can copy." That said, there are always numerous ways of writing any single sentence (which can be a nightmare sometimes).

All that said, I rather enjoyed this short piece. Keep it up.

[roarke]

I like the feel of this and I always dig the conceptual. In the second to last paragraph, I think you mean "than" instead of "then". Entertaining and thought provoking write, nice job.