Checkmate

The little king was holding onto his crown as he made a run for it. It was like the sky had opened up its gates. He was terrified. After all, he was about as small as a pine seed, smaller than a grain of rice. And that was exactly what was coming down on him. He was not quite sure what had happened or how he had ended up in this predicament. He knew he was not outdoors, the sky above him had no trace of blue. So, it wasn’t the sky at all. Maybe, he was in some kind of hall. It was rather dark and there was not much he could see. He guessed if he had closed his eyes and listened – really sensed where he was – he would have said in a church – one of these very old ones, made out of massive stone and wood that had been rubbed smooth and shiny over the centuries. But he did not have time for any of that – he was running for his life.

First, there had only been one rice grain. It had come from out of nowhere. It had startled him quite a bit as it had landed almost right next to him. He had taken a couple of steps backwards, away from this massive, opaque looking grain that seemed to take in all the light that was reflecting from the shiny white surface it had come to rest on. It looked like a giant spotlight had been pointed at it, even though there was no light source that he could make out. It was odd, but he had avoided the worst – or so he had thought.

Just moments later two more grains landed, one left and one right of him, taking him completely by surprise. For a second, he was unable to move. Then he thought it wise to get away from these giant projectiles falling out of the sky. They looked like two enormous glowing sticks on the black ground. Heading towards a slightly lighter area he thought he heard a kind of swooshing sound overhead. The next four grains of rice only missed him by a fraction of an inch. Now he started running in earnest, across the white field over to the darkness. There was no time to look for the source of all of this. There were eight more pieces falling down, and he had to zigzag to avoid being crushed and ending up as a dark red stain barely visible on the dark wooden floor. After that he stopped counting. It did not matter how many things he had to outrun as long as he did all of them.

Maybe, he was running in the wrong direction. Maybe, it was one of these cases where people were crushed by a fallen tree because they were running in the direction it was falling. He took a sharp left turn. There were more grains coming down. So, he took another left. There was even more rice falling out of nowhere. The black patch behind him was barely visible. And the white field he had just crossed was also covered in the cereal. He had to brake hard for the grain coming down right in front of him. He tripped, stumbled and fell over. He had just enough time to roll over to avoid the next terror crashing down. He got up, took a few shaky steps before breaking into a run once more. Zigzagging again he noticed that he had lost his crown. He had, however, no intention of turning back to look for it. By now it was probably buried under the rice, anyway. He did not know what to do, except to keep on running.