Checkmate

Marley stepped into her apartment, closed the door behind her. She let out a low sigh, more of a reflex than an expression. Every time she arrived back home, after a day of work and the to-and-from commute through the cold winter rain, her body emitted that same sigh, heavy and overdrawn, largely without her being aware of it. She let her bag slide from her shoulder, hung her raincoat on the hook, and stepped into her living room.

Today was her birthday.

She had no celebrations planned. No cards, no well wishes, no decorated cakes. Her coworkers didn’t know that today was her birthday, and she had none of the desire to tell them. Her old friends didn’t have her new phone number or address.

The only family she had - her father - had been buried for over a year.

It used to be that her birthday was a momentous occasion, thanks to her father. He would pull out all the stops: cake and ice cream, candles and streamers, those silly cone hats. He was a carpenter, a hard working one, with rough hands and big arms. But every year, on the second of November, he would put all of his working responsibilities aside to be with her. She remembered how he would always start those days, knocking on her bedroom door to wake her and saying “Happy birthday darling.” She would smile, sleep in a little longer, and then they would make blueberry pancakes.

Marley’s mother had passed away while giving birth, so her and her father became the total in each others lives. They spent those precious birthdays doing whatever Marley wanted to do, before going home to eat cake, watch TV, and play chess. This was their favourite game, and the time they spent playing together had now become her fondest memory: sitting on the living room floor, the rain pattering on the bay windows, satiated with sweets and lost in a game of chess. He was a great player too, and he would not give her a win, even on her birthdays. He did not believe in letting someone win just to make them feel better. He valued truth and competence, and knew that a win given was nothing to a win earned.

They played together as much as they could, but he had to work hard to pay the bills, and she was often busy with schoolwork and socializing and the myriad of other efforts that are required of a young girl. She got older, and she got a job to help out, as she could see her father’s trade taking its toll on his body.

His back pain in particular was always a point of distress for them both. He stretched, and got massages, and stretched more, but it kept getting worse. He went to the doctor, and shortly after they discovered a tumour growing at the base of his spine. Marley fully denied the gravity of the diagnosis, and began working as much as possible to try and mitigate the financial strain, but the cancer didn’t care how hard she worked and just kept growing. It would shrink with chemotherapy, and the surgeons would cut it out, and then it would come back, and they would do it all again. Her father quickly deteriorated into a ghostly version of himself, his large muscles dissipating like smoke, his dark skin going pale, and Marley kept working harder, and staying up all night researching clinical stage treatments, and speaking with the doctors about alternative treatments. And then one night, his heart stopped beating and he slipped quietly out of her world.

A knock at the door snapped her back into the living room. She wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there. She thought it may have been a while, as her hair was almost dry from the rain. She turned, still in a daze, and walked to the door.

She opened it slowly, and saw only an empty hallway. She looked down, and saw a box sitting on the floor. It was a perfect square, wrapped neatly in plain brown paper. There was no postage or writing on it.

She leaned out of the door, looking both ways down the hall, but there was no one there. She looked back at the box.

After a moment of hesitation, she picked it up. It had a bit of weight, and something clattered softly inside. She gave it a single shake, and heard the clatter again.

She turned to bring it inside with her. Closing the door, and placing the box on the counter, she went to have herself a glass of wine. She poured the usual amount, then remembered it was her birthday, and poured herself some more. You only turn twenty six once, she thought with melancholy.

She sat down on the couch, flicked on the TV, and took a sip of merlot. This was usually the most predictable moment of her day, but now it was slightly off, like a familiar painting that goes just a bit crooked. She looked over at the counter, saw the box, sitting there as plain as anything. It’s perfect simplicity gave off at once a feeling of tedium and strange premonition.

She went back to whatever she was watching on TV, but now that box was staring back at her, irking her, prodding at her curiosity. She flicked off the TV, let go another sigh, and grabbed the box from the counter.

She sat on the floor and carefully peeled back the brown paper. She quickly realized what was inside, and it brought a wave of sadness and tension. It was a chessboard; made of pine and cherry, it was beautifully varnished and shined like glass within the warm light of her small apartment.

As she peeled back the brown paper, a small white card fell from within. She examined it, and the words brought the sadness and tension welling up like a thermal spring.

“Happy birthday darling.”

Tears were streaming from her eyes, and she dropped the card to the ground. It landed on it’s face, and there was something written on the back. She quickly picked it up to examine it, and was met with that same feeling of strange premonition.

“You play white.”

The next hour for Marley consisted of crying, trying to watch TV, drinking wine, and inspecting the chessboard and the peculiar card that came with it. She had set up the pieces; they were carved with astounding perfection, woodwork that would have even impressed her father. After a great deal of deliberation and a few more measures of wine, she sat with the board. She picked up the white pawn on the e2 square, and moved it to e4.

She sat there, and the stillness brought her back to the games with her father. The apartment was immersed in an aura of calm, with the rain tapping lightly on the window outside.

She let out another sigh, but one of exasperation, frustration, sadness. She stood up and headed to the kitchen to open another bottle. A sound came to her ear, and it stopped her instantly. Her blood ran cold. It was a dry knock, an all too familiar sound, the sound of felt connecting with wood. She slowly turned back around, and saw what she knew she would see.

A black pawn had advanced two squares.

She let out a cry, her wine glass falling to the ground. She stepped back, fumbling for something to support her, but found nothing and tumbled to the ground. She scurried backward into the wall farthest from the living room, clutched her knees to her chest, and stared ahead.

The chessboard sat on the floor, undisturbed and unremarkable. But that black pawn was two squares farther than it had been before.

She sat there for a long hour, not wanting to move. She tried to explain to herself exactly what had happened. She had been drinking quite a bit. But she never had vivid hallucinations while under the influence of alcohol, and doubted whether that was even possible. She then believed it to be some kind of trickery, some sort of magnetic or electrical force that she didn’t understand. But she had inspected the entire chessboard before, and saw nothing to indicate that it was anything other than a regular, if not beautiful board. The last possible rationalization available to her was that she had gone crazy, had hallucinated, was experiencing some form of psychosis. She had been on a waitlist for low-cost counselling for months, and now she knew that the wait had been too long and she had snapped.

After a long time spent huddled on the ground, she stood up, tipped over a bit from the wine, and marched over to the chessboard. Standing as far back as she could, she reached out and played another piece. She quickly recoiled, keeping her eyes fixed on the board. Her breath froze, as she watched a black pawn lift itself up from the board, move up two squares, and land back down with that soft familiar knock.

She reflexively kicked the board hard, the pieces flying all over the room. She moved quickly to grab her raincoat, before running out of her apartment and slamming the door behind her.

Marley walked aimlessly. The rain was coming down softly, but it was stinging cold. She walked down the dark empty streets around the area of her apartment. She had only moved in about a year ago, after her father had died, and had never done much exploring throughout the neighbourhood. The paths and structures surrounding her were foreign, and the long shadows cast from the street lights added to the surrealism she was immersed in. She was not thinking about what had happened, as there was simply no way to make any sense of it. She just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, bracing herself against the chill. But after a few hours the cold became too great, and she made her way back to her apartment, soaked through and freezing.

She opened the door slowly, peering into the room. Everything was exactly how she had left it; the TV still on, the wine glass on the floor, and the chessboard and its pieces scattered around the living room like an unknown constellation. Despite this, the room was still filled with that sense of calm, and the warmth and light was a much welcome reprieve. She took off her now soaking rain coat and let it fall to the floor. She walked across the room, reached down, and picked up a black pawn. She closely inspected it, shook it by her ear, and tried peeling back the felt on the bottom of the piece. Her investigation concluded that this was just a chess piece. Wood, felt, a little glue and varnish.

She let out a long breath, feeling both vividly awake and very tired. Slowly she collected the pieces and the board, and set them up in the middle of the living room floor. She sat down, took a deep breath, and played the same move as before: white e2 pawn, up to the e4 square.

Without a moment of hesitation, the opposing black pawn advanced two squares. Marley let out a breath of wonderment and shock. In that moment, she knew that she wasn’t experiencing a hallucination, or being tricked by some kind of illusory force. She recognized that what was happening was something divine, something purposeful, something important.

And more than anything else, she felt her father’s presence in the room.

That same calm washed throughout the apartment like a strong tide, rising to the ceiling and submerging everything in its atmosphere. She played another piece, and after a moment, a black knight replied. The fear and bewilderment she had felt before was quickly fading away, replaced with a sense of clear purpose. She wanted - no, needed - to win.

One of her biggest regrets was never winning a game against her father. She wasn’t a sore loser; she just wanted to show her dad that she could do it. When he passed, she began playing chess as much as she could. She had climbed the ranks online quite a bit in the past year, moving her rating from a modest eight-hundred all the way up to sixteen-hundred, and she was still improving. This progress was not born out of enjoyment, but out of a deep well of dissatisfaction and sadness. From the loss of a chance to win against her father, she excelled with a grey determination.

But now, sitting on the carpet, still cold from the rain and buzzing from the wine, she felt as though the chance had been given to her once more. She played another piece, and again a black piece responded, hovering ever so slightly above the board before landing softly upon its destination.

The game was in full swing now. Marley, against whatever force this was; although she was certain she knew what, or rather who it was. She played her pieces carefully and with practiced analysis. Sometimes the black pieces would respond instantly, while other times they would sit completely still in a state of deliberation, before moving slowly to another square. Perhaps because of the wine, or more likely the unbelievable nature of what was happening, Marley made a blunder. She knew it as soon as she began moving the piece. She could hear her father’s words from so many years ago, when he was teaching her the game: “Once you touch a piece, you have to play it.” Within another four moves, she was in check, and two moves after that, checkmate.

She looked up, expecting her father to be across the board, with that kind smile he always wore after a win. But she saw nothing there, of course. She laid a finger on top of her king, and tipped the piece over.

The moment it toppled, all of the black pieces swept across the board, rearranging themselves in perfect order. This made her gasp, but after a moment she realized what it meant. It was time for the next game.

Marley stood up, and gathered herself a blanket and a glass of water. She lit some candles around the room, tidied up the wine glass from the floor, and turned off the TV. She sat down, feeling slightly refreshed, and began setting up her pieces.

She played again, and again she lost. There was no blunder this time, but rather a series of small mistakes. Again she tipped her king, and again the black pieces reset themselves almost instantaneously. She was feeling very tired, but at the same time she felt stimulated and excited. She had no idea what time it was, but could see the sky beginning to brighten ever so slightly. The rain was still tapping away on the window.

She went to the bathroom to wash her face. The cold water felt refreshing, and helped her to feel a bit more connected to reality. She looked up from the sink, and stared into the mirror. She barely recognized the woman standing there. She had gone through so much change, so much difficulty in the past year. It had all taken a physical toll on her. Even her irises seemed to have lost a bit of their colour, going from a vibrant spring green to an almost oceanic grey and green mixture. Looking into the mirror, she wept. Tears streamed down her cheeks, for all she had lost and everything she had given up on. She had ignored all of her old friends, even when they reached out to try and help. She did the bare minimum at work, making only enough money to meet her needs. Her hobbies and passions had withered away like unwatered ferns. She felt as though she had been living behind a wall of glass, unable to reach out and interact meaningfully with anything.

She walked back to her living room, toward her bookshelf. She reached out and took down the picture frame her father had made for her, right before he had become bedridden. In it was a photo of her father, staring somewhere off in the distance, a satisfied smile upon his face. He had just finished a big project, and someone there who was taking photos of it snapped one of him. It was perfect in its simplicity and candidness, and had been Marley’s most cherished photo of him.

She took the frame, and placed it on the ground by the chessboard so that it was facing her. She sat down, still weeping. She didn’t want to let her life slide away from her anymore. Rather than being washed away by all that had happened, she knew she had to accept it, work with it, nurture it, and begin living for what could happen.

These thought swirled around in her mind as she set up the white pieces on the board. She looked at the board, then at the photo. The tears stopped abruptly, and she took a breath, deep within her diaphragm, and then letting the air fall from her.

She played a piece, and black responded. She played another, and again black countered. The calm that filled up the room was now increasing in its frequency, building up in its energy. She slid one of her bishops diagonally across three squares, and a black knight hovered up and above the pawn in front of it, before landing down again. She recognized immediately what was happening: the Two Knights Defence. It was one of her father’s favourite openings, being an extremely aggressive and tactical play. But Marley had studied productively, and knew how to keep the game in her favour.

The match was being played quickly now, almost instinctively. The pitch in the room was rising, and she thought she could almost feel the air vibrating around her. Again the black pieces moved aggressively, and again she played a perfect advancement, keeping them on the defensive. With every move she felt her confidence redouble, opening up new channels of attack and taking pieces. The rain outside seemed to come down harder, turning the pattering it produced into a thousand rolling snare drums. She swept her rook across the board, leaving it wide open for attack. After a moment of hesitation, the black bishop took the bait, allowing Marley to move her pawn up to the end of the board and promote it to a queen. The game was now hers, and within three more moves she had black in a dire check. The energy of the room reached an apex; all of the objects around the apartment began trembling, and the sound of the rain seemed to encompass everything.

She moved her queen. Checkmate.

“I love you, dad.” she said, with tears rolling and her heart thundering.

The black king tipped over, and upon striking the board released an ethereal shockwave. It swept outward, and the current running through the air vanished. The objects around the apartment stopped their shaking. The rain died off in an instant, diminishing into that light pattering on the window.

For a moment, or perhaps much longer, Marley sat in that stillness. She felt a calmness and resolution wash over her that she hadn’t felt in years. Then, a buzz sounded from her phone.

She walked across the room to her bag, reached inside to retrieve it, and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak with Marley?” the voice said, softly.

“This is her.”

“Oh, hi there! I’m calling with the Oaktree Clinic, I saw you were on our waitlist for some counselling services and a spot has just opened up.”

Marley glanced out the window, seeing that it was daytime. The rain was falling ever so slightly, but the sun had broken through the grey, reflecting brightly off of the droplets clinging to the ferns on her balcony.

“Yes,” Marley said, “I’d love to start right away.”

“Great!” the soft voice replied. “We can get you in later this week, are you free on Thursday around six o clock?”

“Yes,” replied Marley. “See you then.”

“We’ll see you then. Take care.”

Marley hung up the phone. She walked back to the living room, saw the chessboard sitting on the ground, as still as it should be.

She picked up the photo of her father. And seeing his smile, she felt herself smiling back.