And then I woke up. It had been a horrible dream, one I simply couldn’t shake. Its meaning danced upon the edges of my mind, and yet I could not comprehend. Slowly rising, the stifling hot air of the room enveloped me as I drifted to the door. But as I reached to open, a nock sounded from the other side. Before I could ask, the voice answered me.
“Did you figure it out yet?”
The door flew open and a dozen hands grabbed me from the void of the stairwell. I knew, quite certainly, that any moment my head would contact the solid brick wall that was just outside the door. I prepared myself for the pain, for the impact, for the coppery taste of blood. But there was none. Instead, I stumbled dumbly into a dark room, with a single white beam of light shining down from above it. Illuminating something. A chair?
I walked to the chair. It was an ordinary chair. It had a single cushion of indescribable colour, and was carved of wood or perhaps iron that was painted. I felt that I should sit on the chair. That it was my purpose for being there. To sit. But why? I would not know till I sat, I reasoned. So I did. I sat. And then it all happened.
The world opened up as a flower or the wings of a quivering butterfly, sights, sounds, feelings, scents, colors, touches, songs, words, heartbeats, all enveloping my soul in an instant. The stars fell from the sky, the earth rose up and bellowed, all of creation in a single, wild, frantic echoing roar. And then it was all gone.
A sharp breath. Ten million angels fastened their eyes upon me. The spreading, bleeding world of colors was replaced by a single table. No, not replaced. As I squinted and peered at a single grain on the table, I could just barely make out the ends of the universe, dancing there. No, I had increased in size, or at least, my perspective had. What was I seeing now then?
A single table. A single chair, which I still sat upon. A single plain stretching on and on upon the tabletop, beginning at the word “Light” and ending in infinity. A rather short distance, I realized. And in between those two close points was a square. A single square that had been divided into many more squares. There was a pattern. White. Black. White. Black. White. Black. And on and on it went. It reminded me of something I had seen before. A game. A diversion. Life?
There were pieces on the board. They moved. They turned. They shook. They cried. They bled. They lived. They died. They moved again. They built castles and tore them down. They took thrones and gave them back. They broke hearts and burned bridges and built bigots. I watched in astonishment. So this was how it all happened. This was it?
“No” said one of the pieces to me. “Some of us move where we want. Some of us move were we can’t and fall from the table top into oblivion. A soul lost into oblivion is a despondent thought indeed. But look, there are other movers and soon this board will be transformed.”
And so it was as the piece spoke. The board shook. The board broke and was sundered thoroughly. The pattern fell apart and the lines came together and instead of a board there were two paths, a black and white one. And they intersected only once. It was a big cross roads. I felt as if I had seen it all before. Had I?
And there at the crossroads I saw five pieces. A queen and her king. A lonely knight. A despondent bishop and his loyal pawn. They were all standing at the cross roads. The world began to fade, the colors returning as the dawn breaks upon the grey twilight light. And the figures made their decisions. Fires burned. Waters froze. Earth broke. Lightning bit. Wind stopped. Stars fell. People died. Trees burned. And all turned to ash at the rising of the Sun. Or was it merely my eyes opening?
And then I woke up. It had been a horrible dream, one I simply couldn’t shake. Its meaning danced upon the edges of my mind, and yet I could not comprehend. Slowly rising, the stifling hot air of the room enveloped me as I drifted to the door. But as I reached to open, a nock sounded from the other side. Before I could ask, the voice answered me.
“Did you figure it out yet?”
