Four Doctors: Chapter 4

Darkness. The world, the universe, all is total darkness. Except, one wonders if darkness can even exist if light is … 

            <Pawn to E4.  Your response?>

            <Knight to C6.>

… if light is what? A distant memory? A half-remembered rumor? A myth?

            <Knight to F3.  Your response?>

            <Pawn to E5.>

There are flashes, impressions of a world made up of images and material objects. Of days spent in shops or out of doors …

            <Bishop to B5.  Your response?>

            <Knight to F6.>

… and always a chessboard. Yes, the game was once played on a board, with pieces, with physical objects…

            <Bishop to A4.  Your response?>

            <Pawn to A6.>

… not simply the constant dry stream of information it has become …

            <King castles.  Your response?>

            <Bishop to E7.>

He remembers sitting in the park and enjoying a friendly game of chess with whomever happened by.  He wouldn’t even have minded losing …

            <Rook to E1.  Your response?>

            <King castles.>

…wouldn’t have minded losing once in a while.  Except, of course, he never did.  It was rare enough that he was ever truly challenged.

            <Bishop to B3.  Your response?>

            <Pawn to B5.>

There was that one fellow … not very friendly.  Odd-looking, too … something in his eyes … something not natural …

            <Pawn to C3.  Your response?>

            <Pawn to D6.>

This odd stranger, with the lifeless eyes … he sits down without so much as a how-do-you-do and starts a game …

            <Pawn to H3.  Your response?>

            <Knight to A5.>

… no chit-chat, just goes at his game like his whole life depends on it

            <Bishop to C2.  Your response?>

            <Pawn to C5.>

The stranger is good, he’ll give him that.  They play to a stalemate.  And for the first time, the stranger cracks a smile.

            <Pawn to D4.  Your response?>

            <Queen to C7.>

Not much of a smile, but it’s the first sign of humanity he’s shown.

The stranger stands, looks down at him. 

“You’ll do nicely,” the stranger says.

            <Knight to D2.  Your response?>

            <C pawn captures D4.>

It is his last memory of the place … of the life he once had…

            <C pawn captures D4.  Your response?>

            <E pawn captures D4.>

…or was it just a dream?

< Four Doctors: Chapter 5

Four Doctors: Chapter 3 > 

Four Doctors: Chapter 1 >>