Lazy Pawn

“Lazy,” I accused. “Lazy. You’re lazy. You’re too lazy to live.”

“I’m alive. That’s enough.” He stated. He shrugged. Indifferent. He took his turn at the game, claiming my knight with his rook. 

I winced at the move. “You just merely exist. You’re there. You’re a being but you’re a being in the simplest, most theoretical terms. Do you even have a soul? Could it have decayed after all these years of non-use? Rusted over like the gears of an old bike? Have you ever even been in a situation where you had to question your morals? Where you had to fight or flight. Where you actually had to f*****g do something?”

There was a silence. I took one of his pawns and he moved the bishop.

“I’m alive. That’s enough.” He repeated.

I could have spit in his face. I could barely even pay attention to the game we were playing now, and mindlessly moved some piece to some other box. I didn’t even see what I was doing. “You disgust me.”

Again with his arrogant shrug. He thought he was better than me. He knew he was better than me. “Why should I chase after such small desires or wants or wishes or dreams? The size of one dream in the whole spectrum of life is barely even visible. And I’m not just talking about life like my life and my lifespan. I’m talking about Life. Life from the whole spectrum of life and death and whatever is after.” He put his hand on one of his pawns. “I’m not saying I know what comes after this life. All I know is it’s a whole lot bigger than the life of the living.” He slid his pawn up one block and I looked down at the board. “Checkmate,” I heard, although I don’t know if that was just in my head or if he actually said it. I was distracted by his indifference, and lost the game! Lost! To him! Checkmate! A pawn checkmating a king!

“Besides, at the end of the game,” He started, moving his pawn diagonally against my king and picking up that piece. He dropped it into the box of the other pieces we both lost throughout the game. He repeated. “At the end of the game, the king and the pawn are put in the same box.”

Reviews

[rt farris]

a well executed scene to show the two different ideas about how to approach life. the dialogue was effective in developing a sense of each character in such a short piece. the characters were extremely believable and each poked a different response in me as i read. she was unrestrained in her frustration with the male character and he was unprovoked by her aggressive attacks on him. then the end and he gets to make his point in a cool and collected fashion. that to me became the morale of the story. great job of writing.