The shadow (2)

After his fourteenth birthday, on which he was overshadowed even more than usual due to the excessive party of the younger brother, his parents finally decided that something had to be done about the gloomy solitude of their oldest son. Without in-depth knowledge of his personality, they only vaguely suggested to him a hobby. In accommodation to his introverted personality, they choose chess, so he might finally make some friends at least. Not wanting or thinking about giving him a choice, they registered their older son over his head at a chess club in the neighbourhood, feeling that this would be a good match. 

They were proven right but in quite the opposite way to their initial intention.

When the young man reluctantly visited the club for the first time, he arrived at a boring-looking concrete high-rise building. Signposts inside led him to a spacious room on the third floor, where wooden tables with banks were lined up in rows. The black-and-white chessboards were the only possible focus points in this mundane space. Listless, he participated in some games with randomly assigned partners, whose names and faces escaped his notice completely. What engraved itself deeply in his heart, however, was the piercing look of despair and anger of the first competitor he beat. It was like witnessing the rise of a dark sun, as his opponent slowly took his eyes off the board, looking straight at him and reluctantly admitted defeat. For the first time, the older son felt truly recognised! The intense emotions transmitted over this brief exchange – regardless of their negative nature – were like drugs for his depraved soul.

Therefore, from this day forward, the older son focused intensely on improving his play, all to continue deriving pleasure from the anguish of the defeated. Soon, he became known as a difficult opponent with a quiet way of playing which was hard to see through. That might have been the reason that on one afternoon, when a new member joined the club, he was still without a partner, so the newcomer took the place opposite of him, choosing the white site.

The older son was flashed by a bright smile, even brighter than the one of his brother, which already annoyed him before the game even started. And it didn’t get any better! The game of his opponent was irrational and impossible to read. Whatever the situation, the new one refused to sacrifice any piece, not even a pawn, but in the same manner also did not seem to intend to strike any of his pieces. Such a challenger should be easy to defeat, but to his increasing irritation, he could not make headway at all. Whatever move he made, the white pieces seemed to dance effortlessly around his black ones.

As this thought occurred to him, his view of the game suddenly shifted. The clacking of the game pieces on the chess tiles became rhythmic drums, and their movements elaborated dance steps. In his mind’s eye, the white figurines reached their hands out to the black characters, they ceased fire and together danced in a circle around the battlefield, like a big celebration.