Your Move

So, there I was again. The sea could forget me if I was less than an inch away, but when I was sailing, we were brothers in arms. Aye, the fish should envy me when I sail, while they commit their felonious crimes for hunger. My boat wasn’t anything special, but it was proper, like a stranger arriving at a high class party with good manners. When they took it away, I couldn’t handle the wits of a clouded gem society. With a gait like mine, I was doomed to be its listener. As I walked the shore, I swam to its deep end and held my breath, to simply pretend I was dead. If there was the opposite of baptism, this was it. Then I let the waves push me back. Someone even asked what I was doing, and it wasn’t what they thought. I was just a housed barrel with a leaky hole, and I wanted to be the ocean’s new barnacle for a while. Annoying it like I did before, then be even more stubborn when it showed me mercy. This melancholy lasted for two days, and then reality began. It was waiting for me and became my sickness. Two more days with a real fever. Soon I became the beggar, asking others at the port if I could go with them. Even I knew that desperation wasn’t good for me. So, I resulted to keeping my head down, while cleaning other people’s boats, listening to conversations to which I could chime in.

I met this fellow who seemed to have this eternal youth about him. Always had a messenger bag and never let go of the strap. He seemed to have no hesitation in inviting me on his fishing boat when I complimented its color. When I told him I didn’t have my license, he said, “We’ll just go really far.” Albeit, I wasn’t much interested in fishing because I could never get a handle on them. One cut from a fin, and it took a toll I wouldn’t be bothered to tolerate. Yet, once again, I was hooked by this dreaded hobby. We’d set out immediately and loaded three gas canisters. He ran the engine, and I stood front. To feel the sea again was a marvel, even a desolate soul should try it at least once. The salesman part of me would never give up trying to convince everyone about the experience. The commission was the delight when someone finally believed my humble persuasion, and they would sail with me. However, with this fellow I’d never felt so solemn and dignified. Compared to my character, I was more a bad book until everyone waits a century to realize it was a masterpiece. Still, I was not guaranteed to be likable ‘til three and a half centuries. It wasn’t arrogant of me to say, as I was only promising my dead self. Any self out of that was a true catastrophic disposition.

When I looked back, it seemed like he was searching for an unworldly figure, walking about on the water. I’d seen this before, a severe lack of food would do that, and it’s more sustainable than whatever addictions are out there. I could quite possibly, mathematically, prove every emotion, and I had a feeling he was doing the same. The sea was still, even a thought could ripple the water. The olive green paint chipped into the water when I held the edge to sit down, one could almost blame me for littering, and I, of course, considered the blame to be the boat’s burden. Both of us got our fishing rods and sat back-to-back at each end of the boat, with the middle seat empty. The best event for me was the fishing bobber, imagining my own boat going ‘round. A sailboat that is. Even though there are better ways to traverse the sea, for me, it was as much a challenge as it was exciting. No struggle to be found. A struggle could haunt someone forever, a challenge makes a person. This was what I would say to a man named Qouz, let the reader know however they read it, that is how it is said. An O after a Q, no mistakes. Surprised to say, he was a professional chess player, lacking in some desire to play anymore and even quit altogether. Being remembered was his biggest worry. He had to be number one.

“What would you do?” he asked, as if I had the hindsight for the right answer, and the foresight for the wrong one.

“What’d I’d do? Be a chess player, that’s who you are, right?” I said.

“Yes, but I couldn’t be someone like that. I want to win.” As he insulted my gyroscopic heart, free wheelin’ to my own whims. Now I felt it beating normally.

“Someone like who, eh, me? Is that what that’s supposed to mean? I’d be right to throw you off this boat right now and take it for myself! You’re a special kind of creature, the one that pretends to be humble in public, but really you feed off every attention like a leech, hidden like a snake! One who has brains like you twiddle your thumbs! When you hear an opera singer, I bet you say to yourself, secretly, that you could do better, when you’re nowhere near that level of elegance! You might not be an expert in a way that knows everything, but you could be an expert of yourself, that’s the life of us all, undermining as that may sound to you. When you play chess, you’re contributing a grain into the great mountains, or the small mounds. You have a superficial relationship with your talents, natural or not, it deteriorates your wisdom and skill. It’s a different type of hunger that leaves you wondering what is and what was. How if chess was a person, it would slap you, tell you, ‘shape up, stand tall, because you’re selfish, you don’t believe in me, well that’s dandy. I will never believe in you. For your expectations are null to me, and you were still bested, without any pieces. I’d laugh, but that’d be an insult to laughter. When I finally laugh, it’s because you cry and weep because you’re unknown. If it were up to me, you’d never play again. I forbid it! When you touch a piece, your fingers break. When you think about it, might you feel 10 percent dumber each time, until all you have left is the thought to relieve yourself,’ Should you be number one in anything, it’d be your name. Give me your rod, I’m fishing alone!”

Now I had two cumbersome rods in my hands, and that was funny to Qouz. Either way, he was left to his own company, and I enjoyed fishing a little bit more because of that. I thought I even felt a nibble. When we went back, he had the same look as before, with a slight grin, that shouldn’t be met for smiling after today. The only thing I could give him was a courteous handshake as a goodbye. After I was done cleaning the rest of the boats, I sat on the sand and made a menial sandcastle, sprinkling the top over and over. The sunset was making me tired, singing its jaded lullaby, so I took a nap on the sand, dangerous as it was.

Some few months later, I saw that silly named man again, and he offered me the same, to keep him company, this time snorkeling, to which I took all offense to, but he kept insisting, so I thought, maybe, that I could ignore him the best that I can. Then he might stop his indecent chatter, but I assume the water will do most of the work. Somehow that didn’t stop him, every time we went underwater, he had to show me something or show himself, and his doings even less than underwhelming. The bubbles from his snorkel just had a distinct noise above all else. The whole scene was rather like a chimney trying to drown itself. Water didn’t seem to smother him in any way. We took a break and that’s when he seemed to mellow out the most. Asked me why I was always at the port, when I practically live there. My home was far away, sometimes I would sneak some sleep on the boats, of the ones that would leave the interiors open, but before I slept in my own. That was getting tougher because I knew my boss suspected me. Then Qouz told me about a couple chess tournaments he won. He was even beginning to popularize a strategy. Rare as it was, some mistakenly wrote it as the Quoz’s Herald, though I knew nothing of the details, except that it prioritizes defense until one simple move, then it’s entirely on the attack. Within our view, a whale’s tale tore through the surface of the water and interrupted us by proving us all wrong. That she indeed had the most interesting conversation of all. We got back and once again I shook his hand and told him goodbye. Apparently, he was going to be gone even longer and asked me to take out his boat out every once in a while, and to that I could gladly promise.