Reflection

Lightning provided the backdrop as well as the light by which they moved the pieces on the board. One after the other after another. Barely had a piece smashed down onto the board - with a smack louder than the sounds made by the streaks of fire and electricity burning through the sky - than the other player smacked a piece of his onto the square for his next move. A line of pieces stood by the board, five, so far. Pieces that had been removed from the game. This line grew slowly though. This game would not be their only chance. They had played thirty three games in the last seventy two hours. The first game had taken five hours, they had started on a beautiful Saturday evening, as the park slowly emptied, the last vestiges of piece on the blue sky slowly fading into the hues of the dying sun. The air had tasted fresh, and now was plagued with desire for the vitality it had had in its heyday. Animals had chirped with sighs as they made to settle in for the night. The green in the park, the yellow of the lamps all around it, the brown of the trees, the red, orange, yellow, and blue from the dying sun, it was all very idyllic. The second game had taken six hours.

The air started to thicken with anticipation, invisible drum rolls heralding the change that the shifting shadow had spoken of when it came to give its report that first evening. He came back the very next day, he knew they would both be there. They would not leave now. He stayed after the second time. He still knew what was happening over the world. Shadows can be everywhere at once. He did not need to tell them though, the board did. The games started to speed up, the men started to glow, in a way where they became magnetic, absorbed darkness and light, and all the primal elements. The thunder, when it started gave the first signs. It was dancing in tempo with their games.

The air had started to burn from the north, fumes coming towards the board, become stale from the south, moist from the east, arid from the west. All were converging on the plain wooden board, as if all had made a pact to meet there, and have their last stand on that board with sixty four squares. Anticipation hung heavy in the air.

The shadow shifted no more. He was still, unmoving, it was as if he were not there. But for the eerie shiver of anyone who passed by. The men did not notice, and noticed everything at once. They saw all. It was all there on the board, with each placement of every single piece, even with all the ones that no longer stood on the board. They saw the past in all the moves that had happened, the present in the moves that were happening at the speed of lightning, or rather, lightning was happening at the speed of the moves, and they saw the future in the calculations they had each made.

Outside, the world burned and flooded, and was dying.