Checkmate, Death

by Cobyboy

  Yet Lydia kept making moves that I didn't see coming. Her strategies were new, even to me. It seemed that maybe humankind was closer than ever to surpassing its creators.

  But that couldn't be! They hadn't left Earth behind yet. Not completely. Humankind was advancing every day, but they were still dependent upon the cradle God had built for them.

  Could it be... that I was just losing because I had let my skills slip?

  It was true that I had grown careless. The game had become so easy that I neglected to practice or think up new strategies. There was no stimuli pushing me to greater heights. The passion had leaked out of me. And the result was that the game was now hard, rather than easy.

  Of course, it didn't help that Lydia was an extremely good player. She was the best human I had ever played against, by far. She could have battled against Alfred, Napoleon, Mahendra, and anyone else in back to back bouts and won every single time. She was breathtakingly skilled. A result of rare natural talent combined with an undying passion and a sharp mind. That was the same combination which had made me the greatest player ever, at one point in time.

  But now that position wasn't just threatened, it was being actively taken away by a dying woman who was paying as much attention to the stories she was telling me as to the game itself.

  I looked at the board. I was left with a bishop, four pawns, my king, and both knights. That's all I had! And none of my pawns were very close to the other end of the board. Meanwhile, I had managed to capture only a knight and a few pawns from Lydia. She was making me look like an amateur, she was making me look like Zanus, even though I was trying harder than I had in recent memory. It was very sad. It was depressing. It was life-altering. Or I guess I should say Death-altering. I would never be the same.

  She won the game in the same way as I had often won against less skilled human opponents. She forced my king back into a corner and, with side-by-side rooks, put me into a position I could not escape from. She didn't even have to use her queen. Sinking even deeper into despair, I realized she had only moved her queen once during the entire game. I don't know if she did it as a test of her own abilities, to win without using the queen, or whether she just never saw the need to do so. Either explanation was equally embarrassing as far as I was concerned.

  "Checkmate," Lydia said, smiling and clapping her little hands together with a weak slapping noise.

  "I don't understand," I said in disbelief.

  She reached over and touched my cheek. "Darling, we're not put on this Earth to understand."

  "But I wasn't put on this Earth. I was put in Heaven. I'm Death."

  Realizing how emotionally screwed up I was, she withdrew and pressed herself into the wall of pillows behind her.

  "If it will make you feel better," she said, "we can have a rematch."

  "No!" I said.

  With a rare flash of violent anger, I swept the chess set from the bed. The pieces went flying, bouncing and ricocheting around the room. Lydia ducked her head, putting her arms up to protect herself. I felt a hot wave of shame, that I was acting so aggressively and callously in the presence of a terminally ill person. But that did nothing to cool my anger. In fact, I only grew angrier. Because I was only angry at myself in the first place.

  "Really," Lydia said, with amazing calm. "We can go again. I'm sure you can beat me next time."

  "It's over, don't you see?" I asked. "Don't you know? Have you never heard the stories?"

  "What stories?" she asked.

  "The game of Life and Death! If you win against Death, you gain immortality. Life everlasting! It's yours, now. You really are going to recover from this disease, in time. All those people were right..."

  As I seethed, falling again into a dark hole of sorrow and growing too weak to even be angry anymore, I remembered what God once said. If I ever played a second game against an immortal, and won, their immortality would be revoked.

  There was already one immortal on Earth. Was there room for another? What would it look like to the denizens of Heaven, the Celestials, if I just kept letting people beat me and therefore beat God's system of mortality? It would look very bad, indeed. There might even be an open challenge window against me, like there had been long ago during my game against Zanus. Except this time, I wasn't confident I would be able to win.

  I looked at Lydia. Her sad, sick face. She didn't deserve this disease of hers, obviously. Like all decent humans, she deserved to at least live to the maximum natural extent. Even so, I could not let these moral qualms interfere with my very important job. I had to play against her again, and win.

  "That's not what I wanted," Lydia said quietly.

  "What?" I asked, coming back to reality.

  "I did know about the game," she confessed. "Kind of. My grandfather told me the story, but of course it was never supposed to be anything but a tall tale. I didn't want to live any longer. I don't want to live forever. I want to die and see what comes after. You're here, which means there is something after death. Can we take it back? Can we nix the immortality thing?"

  I stared in wonder at her, this weak and fragile creature, and her infinite grace. It seemed impossible that a mere human could be as perfect as she was. For a moment, she was even more beautiful and angelic than Lamina.

  "We have to play again," I replied. "And again. And again. As many times as it takes for me to win. And it won't work if you just lose on purpose. It has to be real. God will know the difference. And though He can sometimes bend the rules if it fits His agenda, He never extends that courtesy to humans."

  She listened to this all patiently. The news that God is real didn't seem to faze her very much.

  "Can we play again right now?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid I am compromised at the moment," I answered honestly. "I'll need time to regain my confidence. And my skill."

  She nodded. "Then I will help you. If you would let me, Death, I would like to become your master. After a fashion. Each time you're on Earth, you can stop in for a game or two. Whenever you're ready. And I can teach you a few new things. Things you apparently haven't heard about, otherwise you would have been able to counter them."

  I wanted to thank her, or say something poignant, but I had no strength left. I lay myself across the bed, using her feet as a pillow, and just stayed there for a while.

  "I used to be the best player possible," I said.

  "You will be again," Lydia promised. "I will get you back in top shape."

  12

  I thought I was sick of chess before. Boy, was I wrong.

  When I returned to Heaven after being beaten by Lydia, I felt worse than I ever had before. It the was lowest I had ever been, the most despicable I had ever felt. Though I should have started practicing immediately, the thought of even looking at a chessboard was almost enough to make me vomit. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But the first thing that I needed to do.

  I decided to work my way up to it. Introduce myself back to chess in small increments.

  It's strange how such familiar, safe, and casual things can take on such sinister and unapproachable dimensions under the right circumstances. A game of chess should be the most effortless thing I could think of, as easy as going up to a urinal and emptying my bladder.

  First, I paid a visit to the Celestial Café for a pot of tea. A nice black blend, rich and mild and deeply flavored. That kind of brew never fails to put me at ease, to open my mind and raise my spirits. I sat in a chair as far from the chess table as possible and slowly sipped my way through the pot until I was sucking at dregs. Then I went to urinate. I took my time, and splashed some cold water on my face at the sink.

  When I came out of the lavatory, the chess table was occupied. A game was just starting between two souls who had, for whatever reason, come wandering out of their private Heavens.

  Perfect. What better way to reintroduce myself to chess than to watch a casual match between two amateurs who probably didn't care whether they won or lost?

&n
bsp; Though neither of the players was very skilled, they were at least cognizant of the rules and evenly matched, so it was still an entertaining game of chess. I relaxed, swinging around on my heels, enjoying myself.

  Someone clapped me on the back. I turned to look, expecting to see anyone but Zanus. But that's exactly who it was. He was dressed very fancifully, still wearing wings from a recent excursion, still emitting that ozone smell of someone who has recently visited the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere.

  "I've just returned from a glorious sightseeing journey with God and I'm in a grand mood," he announced, speaking loud and proud so that the whole room could hear him. Like some rich kid at an exclusive private school in New England.

  With his hand still on my shoulder, he pulled himself close and said quietly, "So don't ruin it for me. I think the time has come for the rematch we agreed on."

  I had forgotten all about that. And now it was coming back to bite me in the ass at the worst possible time. I almost freaked out, but I was able to pull myself back from the brink. If I couldn't beat Zanus, of all people, it was truly over. I may as well retire from my position and move on to the next stage of my existence. And if that was the case, what did I have to worry about? It would be nothing but casual, meaningless games of chess forever, when and only when I actually wanted to play them.

  "Let's do it," I said.

  Zanus went up to the chess table where the two souls were playing. For a moment I thought he was going to kick them off. That would be very rude. But instead, he used one of his unique talents as an angel. He touched the side of the table, shut his eyes a moment, and then pulled an exact copy of the board out and set it on the floor nearby.

  "There we go," he said.

  I did my part by grabbing two chairs from an unoccupied dining table and setting them up. We sat and, this time, Zanus did not indulge in his superstitious pregame rituals. No tea for him. I was surprised, and, I hate to say, a bit worried.

  "I guess you've been practicing," I said.

  "A lot." He laughed, rubbing his hands together greedily. His wings gave an excited twitch, an overflow of nerve energy from his brain sending an impulse to them. "I've been playing against everyone. Even a few humans. I've played against the better players among all the souls you've sent to Heaven."

  "Oh yeah?" I asked. "Like who?"

  He waved his hand. "I forget most of their names. Most of them weren't very memorable. And they were very easy to beat. Oh, wait..." He started snapping his fingers, trying to remember. "There was one guy... oh, yeah! Alfred of Wessex. The King!"

  I smiled. "I guess he gave you a pretty good challenge."

  "On the contrary," said Zanus, "I wiped the floor with him."

  That wasn't good. Alfred was a great player. But there was one ray of sunshine in what Zanus said. It meant Alfred really was in Heaven, proving what I already knew; everything I experienced in Hell had been fake.

  I could beat Zanus. I didn't want to live and work in a cosmos that would allow otherwise. So I went into the game fearless, angry, determined to crush the idiot and wipe that smug smile off his face. Even millennia of intense practice wouldn't put him nearly on the same level that I was on now, in my lowest state.

  In a way, this game was more important than any other. More important than the game with Lydia, even.

  In any other context, at any other point in my existence, I would have said it was a pretty good game. I even would have capitulated that Zanus had improved his skills. I would have given him full credit for applying himself. But at the moment I was too raw, too vulnerable to feel so humble.

  The game was not over in two moves, like before. It lasted a little while longer than that. Zanus made some very good moves, some professional moves. I was impressed that he had apparently developed a modicum of common sense in the many years since our last game.

  But in the end, as I hoped he would, he made a serious blunder. A simple mistake that anyone, even a grandmaster, could have made. Just not me. Even when I lose pieces, I at least see it coming.

  He was trying, I think, to protect his king from some move he foresaw me making. So he moved his king off of the back rank, where it was safe, and pushed it to d2. A conservative move, a purely defensive move. But far too early in the game. He should have been on the offensive, he should have been attacking.... but, deep down, he was still worried that I would find a way to trap his king like I did in our first game.

  So, what did I play in return? I had a straight shot with my rook, an immediate checking opportunity. And it wasn't as if I was playing against God. It was just Zanus. So that was what I did. It was the first check of the game and it not only set the tone, it sealed my victory. In that one single dumb move of his, he doomed himself.

  But he stretched out his death throes as long as possible. He made every move available to him to delay his loss. This was proof that he now actually understood the game and the relationship between pieces.

  "It's not a shame to lose to Death," he finally said.

  "You played competently," I said. It was the only compliment I felt prepared to give him.

  "You know," he said, starting to set the board up for the next people who came to use it, "I made an appeal to God recently. He agreed. I'm going to change my name. It will be shortened to Zane."

  I nodded. "Probably for the best."

  "Yes. Probably."

  That was all we said, and thus ended the era of total hatred between us. We never became tight friends, but we at least respected each other. I never made fun of his name again, and not just because he changed it. I had just lost the taste for it, is all. I had lost the taste for Zanus's anus.

  Never mind. It's still pretty funny.

  ***

  So, with a nervous stomach, I was able to beat Zanus. All was still not right in the universe, but it was getting there.

  Next I paid Lamina another visit, with the objective of getting her to play a game of chess with me. I knocked at her door, and she didn't answer, so I went to peek in through the window. She was entertaining a gentleman caller, some angel I didn't recognize who was tall and handsome and perfect, the type of charming, fun-loving guy you want to hate but can't. I decided to leave and come back another time.

  What I really wanted was to find Alfred and play against him again. Partly to prove my skills, partly to further my certainty that I had done nothing wrong, and that he was just fine, enjoying his time in Heaven.

  But, as I have already described, trying to find a particular denizen of the Suburbs is like trying to find a specific seashell in an entire ocean. Possible, if only you wish to spend eternity looking. And I did not.

  The reason Zanus was able to find Alfred, and the other human souls, was that he's an angel. They have access to certain powers and levels of security that I could never dream of.

  If I could not actually find Alfred and speak to him, I could at least speak to someone who had spoken to him.

  So, against my better judgment, I went off to find Zanus again.

  I took a walk around Heaven, which really doesn't take as long as you would think provided you avoid the Suburbs and the interior of the Palace, and asked every Celestial I came across if they had seen Zanus. I'm sorry - Zane.

  I eventually narrowed the search down to the West Heaven Pub, a popular gathering place when the Café was closed for the day. He was engaged in a game of billiards with a few other angels. But, when it wasn't his turn, he was kind enough to step aside for a quick chat.

  "You said you met with Alfred of Wessex," I said.

  "What's it to you?" he asked. Not really defiantly, but rather skeptically.

  "I don't know if you've heard, but I was just in Hell..."

  "Yes," said Zane, nodding. "God mentioned something about letting you sneak by during our trip."

  "Well," I said, "when I was there, I... was subjected to some dark imagery. I'll just put it that way. And it partially involved Alfred. I know he's doing just fine, but I would still
like to hear it from you. To put my mind at ease."

  The angel Zane smiled. I had a bad feeling he was going to request some favor in exchange for his information. But he had apparently matured beyond such things, and offered what he knew freely.

  "Your friend was doing well," he said. "As if anything else was possible in the Suburbs. His private Heaven seemed to involve long, aimless walks through the English countryside of a thousand years ago or more... he would make stops in at every house, and see people learning and reading and doing very well in each. He would stay for a meal or a short conversation at each place and then move on."

  "That sounds lovely," I said. "Did he say anything about me?"

  "Just that he had played against you before, and that it was a very good game," said Zane. He frowned now, looking around as though to make sure no one was listening. "What I said before, about me wiping the floor with him... It wasn't really true. I mean, I did win. But not so decisively as that. It was a close game."

  I nodded, feeling infinitely better. Mostly because Alfred was not letting his interest and skill in chest waste away as I had.

  "Thank you," I said. "I really mean it."

  Zane shrugged. "Whatever."

  He went back to his game, and I left the pub.

  ***

  The next morning, I was at the Celestial Café bright and early, ready to play against all comers. And come they did. Once word got around that Death was accepting challenges, the Café became even fuller than usual. I played game after game, dozens of them. One after the other, with hardly any breaks. By the end I was dehydrated, hungry, tired, and my ass hurt from the chair, but I felt... content. I didn't feel exuberant, or manically happy. I just felt like myself. Which was the best thing I could have hoped for.

  I won every game.

  Afterward, I went to my apartment, had a meal, and lay in bed to organize my thoughts.

  It was time to face the actual facts. In some ways, reality was worse than I had imagined. But in most ways, it was better.