Sitting down at one of the multiple chess tables set up on the grass, I awaited my competitor to join me. I took in the scenery for a moment before kicking off my sandals. The grass felt as amazing as it looked: cool and sharp and tickling the soles of my feet. Everything about this place was perfect and it made my heart truly swell to be here. I indulged in the serenity for a few moments longer before shade washed over my body. I opened my eyes and found my competitor standing above me.

My competitor was good looking in a 1950’s way, classic but with a false shine to it. This was ironic though, since his clothes harkened more to the 1990’s grunge era rather than the 1950’s swing. His jeans were loose and faded, holed at the knees and the cuffs. His shirt was black and frayed a bit, and he had flannel overshirt tied around his waist. His Chuck Taylor All-S tars were soiled and filled with holes and he didn’t appear to be wearing socks. His hair was shoulder length and clean, but lacked any basic grooming. He was a good amount over six feet but hardly approaching seven. He took the seat opposite me and opened his messenger bag, pulling out his chess pieces.

“You understand how clichéd this is right?” he asked me as he took out the pieces one by one, moving the white figures towards me while keeping the black ones for himself.

“I know, but come on, how often are you asked to do this anymore?” I asked in retort, sitting up just a little bit and sliding my feet back into my sandals. My friend rolled his eyes and continued to divvy up the pieces. “How’s business?”

“Don’t call it that,” he snapped, tossing the now empty box to the cool bed of grass below and started setting up his pieces. He took a minute to visibly try and calm himself before shaking his head slowly. “It’s hard. There’s a lot of people I don’t want to deal with right now…” he sounded like he was going to say more and decided against it. He probably realized that there wasn’t a need to say much more. I understood. We both did.

“Kids again?” I asked as I set my pawns on the front line. Tiny soldiers in a row.

“It’s always kids,” he said immediately. “If it’s not the kids getting killed over in Iraq it’s the kids in Africa. If it’s not the kids in Africa it’s the thousands of kids all over the world who have to go from domestic abuse or rape or God knows what else.”

“You can’t see the world like that,” I sighed and moved my pawn up two spaces. The match had begun.

“You’re wrong Nate,” he started, moving his own pawn. “That’s how I have to see the world…”

“All work and no play…” I smiled at him, trying to ease the mood.

“It’s NOT WORK!” Even I was surprised when he yelled. The serenity around us broke as many looked to face my friend. He sighed and lowered his head. “It’s your move,” he grumbled as he worked to hide his head behind his locks. I could see the red flush to his face.

“Sorry D, I just meant to yank you a little bit,” I moved my knight, capturing one of his pawns.

“Well I’ve told you a thousand time I don’t like you joking about that shit. It’s not a job. A job implies that you can turn it off whenever you want. A job means you can walk away from it whenever you want and that’s just not me, Nate.”

“Have you ever tried?” I asked, looking to my friend sincerely.

D set down the pawn he had picked up and turned in the stone chair. He licked his lips slightly and turned back to me for a second, making sure I was following his glance.

“You see him?” he asked and pointed to one little boy running around. The young one had red hair, lots of freckles and a smile that was missing teeth. He was roughly six years old and had the subsequent happiness that accompanied that age. “What do you see when you look at him?” D asked.

“I…” I started, trying to figure out if this was a trick question. “I see a happy little boy who had a visit from the tooth fairly recently?” I seemed to ask more than answer.

“You know what I see?” D asked. “I see that he’ll die when he’s 87 of a severe stroke, but luckily it’ll happen when he’s asleep and he’ll go peacefully. Do you wanna know what will happen to the pretty little sixteen-year-old on the swing set cause that story is a lot meaner.”

“Okay, I get it,” I sighed, looking at the young girl on the swing holding her boyfriend’s hand. I didn’t want to think about how this girl would leave this world.

“No, you don’t get it Nathan! I can’t say ‘Okay, that’s enough, I get it’. This is my life. I don’t get to turn if off. I see how you’re going to die, I see how she’s going to die, I see how everyone’s going to die and I just have to deal.”

“D, I know.” I sighed, looking down to the chessboard. He tapped his pawn repeatedly before moving it up, capturing one of mine. “Isn’t that kind of what you signed up for though?” I asked, my eyes still fixed on the pieces so I didn’t have to see the daggers D was now shooting me.

“No, it wasn’t! I signed up to try and help people, to try and ease what they were going through and make the transition a natural progression for them, but that wasn’t what I got. See, the girl before me was a bitch and never bothered to explain to me what you had to see around you twenty-four hours a day. I didn’t know I was going to be walking around and seeing when little children were going to die, how they were going to die. I don’t want to see that a beautiful little girl is going to be raped and butchered in ten years. I don’t want to know that a sweet little boy is going to be brutally beaten by his father until he takes his own life. I didn’t know that this was part of the deal!” D’s voice got more and more intense as he moved through his speech. This wasn’t exactly news to me but at the same time, I had never quite heard it like this. D had always had a screw loose but he was always still somewhat put together: I was seeing none of that right now. D was far worse now than he was back when we met.

It was three years ago when my grandmother died. D came around just when Gram was at her worst. But when Gram passed, D stuck around and spent more time together. He and I got pretty close pretty quick, even though he was a little sad for my taste. D was a good guy and though he could be depressing some days he was usually a pretty laid back, funny dude.

When he started disappearing for periods of time and flaking out on situations, I asked him what was going on.

He told me that he was Death.

Yes, the Death with the hourglass and hood and stuff, and that he was always off collecting the recently dead.

I immediately thought he was insane and tried to call the cops. He basically had to kill my houseplants and goldfish to convince me that he wasn’t crazy.

I naturally started asking questions (how can you not when you realize that you have a semi-mythical creature as a best friend?) and I found out that D had only been Death for about a hundred years or so. Deaths cycled all the time so that no one went off the deep end. When a Death was cycled out they went up to Heaven (no Death went to hell) and basically got to continue in the afterlife as any other person would. He told me that he had taken the job from a friend of his as she had done before him and so on all the way back to the beginning.

He also told me that he was trying to find someone to replace him as Death; that one hundred years was entirely too long to be in the position.

“D come on man, settle down,” I quieted my friend, putting a hand over his. D nodded, his head still looking down as he tried to compose himself again. This was the worst I had seen him in a long time. Kids got to him. Kinda explained why he never left the house unless he was on a job or I dragged him out the door.

“I know, I know,” he sniffled lightly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Sorry man I just… I’m not hanging on so well you know?” he asked, chuckling at himself lightly. “I really got to get out of this gig…” he sniffled again and picked up a castle, moving it into a position that seemed random to me.

“I know…” I trailed off, looking down at the board. I was winning. I was beating Death in a chess match…but then again, I always did.

“We still have our deal right?” D asked a bit desperately, looking from me to the board as his hands ran through his hair. I could see his fists tighten on his locks.

“Yeah man, of course. That deal will always stand…” I nodded, forcing my gaze away from my friend.

D had asked me to take over for him about two years ago, only three or four months after he told me he was Death. I told him no, of course, I didn’t want that kind of responsibility and pressure and fucking heartache that went with the job. D kept trying to find people to fill the job for him and continuously had terrible luck with it. He didn’t want to “trick” people as he thought his predecessor had with him so he always laid everything out on the table to any prospective deaths: yes, there was the ability to ease people and make their transition better but there was this other, terrible side to it that was just as dark as the other was light. And naturally, that terrified people and they ran off as quickly as possible.

One night I promised D that if he could ever beat me in a chess game, I would take over his place. D had never played chess before and I was a state champion…I figured it was a fairly safe bet. I didn’t figure it would make me feel as guilty as it did.

“You’ve been practicing?” I asked my friend as I moved my knight again. He nodded, looking at the pieces with an intense focus.

“That’s all I’ve been doing since last week when you beat me…” D had really taken the challenge to heart, thinking that there was no way he was going to get anyone to take over for him. I had seen several books on chess and chess strategy in his apartment when I would come to visit him. Once he did nothing but read those books, cover to cover, and than insist that we have our weekly match then and now, even though it was two days before we usually did. I still beat him.

“No…” D looked down to the board, seeing his king standing a lone. He looked around, examining every move he could make. “I can’t win can I? There’s no way that I could win this match could I?” he asked me, looking up and down from the board to me. I couldn’t bring myself to nod or say anything; he didn’t need me to.

“Please, no…” he yelled. D’s eye frantically started scanning at the board, desperate to find something he had missed before. “God no…” he whispered.

D slammed his head down to the marble table. I immediately jumped up, wanting to run in and check for blood but reminding myself that he was essentially invincible at this point. He let out a wail and I noticed for the first time that tears were literally streaming down his face.

“You don’t understand Nathan,” he cried, looking up to me, though I’m sure the tears blocked his vision. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t go around seeing kids as broken corpses. I can’t do it anymore, not even for another week. Nathan this is killing me. I don’t even feel human anymore; I don’t even remember what humanity feels like. I just go through the days and feel nothing but their loss and their sorrow! I can’t live like this anymore Nathan, I can’t.” D whimpered like a beaten dog as he released everything. I looked down to my friend, watching his mental breakdown.

“Actually,” I sighed as I sat back down in my seat, looking across to him. He lifted his gaze in confusion and watched me flick my king on his side. “There’s one way you can win…” I said sadly.

D’s confused eyes swam as he watched my king fall over. His mouth fell open slightly as he wiped at his nose again with the back of his hand. His wide gaze focused away from the fallen plastic figure and locked on me.

“Yeah… I know what I’m doing. It’s something I should have done before I let you get this far gone D…” I trailed off, smiling slightly at him.

“But-but do you understand what you’re going to have to deal with?” he asked, suddenly overwhelmed by guilt.

“Yeah, I’ve been listening to you bitch about it for fucking two years,” I chuckled, reaching over and pushing D slightly. “I know what I’m doing and I’m ready. Do whatever you need to do to make this happen…”

I watched as my friend started to change in front of my eyes. D reached up and wiped at his eyes, clarity washing over him as he realized that I wasn’t kidding. He hung his head again as he wiped at his eyes over and over again.

For a moment I was afraid; maybe he was too far gone for this moment to bring the man back to sanity. Maybe D had just seen too much death, too much hurt for the man to continue with he mind intact.

I reached my hand over to touch D’s shoulder and, as I gripped him there, his face lifted. His face looked like it had lost twenty years as he seemed to be at ease for the first time since I had met him. No part of me was reserved about what the future held, no part felt afraid. Seeing the peace that I had given to a friend who so desperately deserved it overshadowed everything else. I was happy to do this for my friend…for a man who deserved the next part of his existence. I smiled down at D.

And, for the first time since I had met him, Death smiled back.

—

© Some rights reserved. “A Game of Chess” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license.

Christina Mason is an English major with aspirations of becoming an author, particularly in the sci-fi and horror genres. She can be contacted at christinapmason@gmail.com. [Website.]

As I woke, I immediately felt the intense heat of the sun on my already sweating forehead. The first motion I made, before opening my eyes or taking a deep breath, was wiping the back of my hand across my brow and attempting to mop up some of the perspiration dripping down my face. It did little to help, but I didn’t think there was much that would help in this heat.

I sat up slowly; keeping my eyes closed in early defense against what I was sure was a blinding sun. I lifted my right hand to shield my eyes and braced myself as I peered through my digits cautiously. When I wasn’t blinded immediately I decided to keep my pace slow. I cleared my throat and readied myself to stand up.

“Hey there, he’s awake!” I heard a thick drawl call out, breaking me from my reverie. The man’s voice was velveteen like, thick and slightly uncomfortable to listen to. His voice was considerably deeper than mine and you could hear a lifetimes worth of tobacco on it. Ironically, the man was quite young, late twenties I figured, and he had those sorts of classic looks that girls always seemed to be drawn to. I immediately didn’t want to like this man. So, of course, he had to be the first to come over and greet me. He walked over and hoisted me up, lifting me as if I was his traveling bag. So much for going slow. “Howdy there,” he said as friendly as the cliché would allow him to. “Name’s Tom. You feelin’ alright friend?” he asked, genuine concern on the man’s face.

Tom was one of those fellows who took the “country music” lifestyle far too seriously for his own good. His clothes looked like something out of a John Wayne movie, except his hat was gray rather than black or white. His face was grizzly with an iron like jaw, his eyes cerulean blue. He was about 5’10” but walked like a man with considerable height to him. The only thing that betrayed Tom’s “tough guy” exterior was his kind smile and the laugh lines around his eyes.

“Yeah, just a little dizzy I think,” I answered, touching my temple lightly as if to illustrate my point. It was really to mop up more sweat.

“Good, good; we was startin’ to worry about ya,” he smiled, clapping his hand against the meat of my shoulder. “Not that it makes much sense to worry bout ya in this particular arrangement,” he laughed at himself. I didn’t get the joke. Tom seemed to pick up on this one. “You’ve been out for a little while now,” he explained.

“Yeah…I don’t even know how I got here…” I trailed off, looking around. Nothing about this place seemed familiar at all. This wasn’t home. This wasn’t where I was stationed. Could I have been hit so hard I ended up this far away from home? “You um…you in charge here?” I asked Tom. He laughed at me.

“I don’t reckon anyone’s in charge round here friend. Least not anyone we can see,” he amended quickly, looking over to the men back towards the hole.

“Well, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Friend, you just aren’t asking any questions I can give ya a decent answer to. I ain’t sure what it is we’re doing here…” he answered. I was physically incapable of stopping my eyes from rolling as Tom continued to avoid my questions.

“What do you gents do here?” I asked sternly, looking at the countless number of men all digging a very deep, wide hole. The hole seemed about nine feet wide, though that was a rough estimate. As for the depth, I couldn’t accurately even guess considering that there were men of many different sizes in the hole. It was most likely about four or five feet deep. Tom leaned on his shovel.

“Well,” he started. “We wake up and we dig then we go to sleep. Sometimes we’ll take breaks and talk or what have you but mostly we just wake up and dig and then go to sleep. Course, sleep doesn’t really do much for us, but we do it anyway. I reckon it’s somethin of a habit.”

“Why are you digging?” I asked, looking at the hole. “What are you digging?”

“Can’t answer that one either,” Tom shrugged, looking over the hole. “It don’t seem to get bigger or deeper or change in any way really. We just seem to dig it and it just seems to stay put.” Tom looked at me and I must have given him a questioning look because he simply shrugged his massive shoulders again.

“That doesn’t make any sense though,” I stated in a kind of outrage that lacked anger. That hole simply had to get bigger.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Tom laughed good-naturedly. “Come on friend, we’ll take a walk. You’ll feel better after you get your blood flowin where it needs to be again.”

Tom put an arm across my shoulders and half-led-half-pulled me along side him. The terrain was dirt: that was really all that was there. It was dirt, some patches of dried plants and a few little ledges of chalky-rock but mostly it was dirt. It was dirt and heat and sky. This place was purely nothing. Looking out onto the horizon, there continued to be nothing. Just blue sky and flat, protruding rocks sticking out into the atmosphere. It would have been serene had it not been so infuriating.

It suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t thirsty either. I was hot, but that was it. I wasn’t fatigued or exhausted or anything but hot. That didn’t make sense either. If it was this hot than I should have found myself thirsty. It would have been hard for me to walk. Nothing about this place made sense. There was a giant hole that never got any bigger no matter how much anyone dug. There was a man who had no answers and yet seemed to know the most here. There was no hunger, no thirst, just epic heat. This place was eternal, the atmosphere was indifferent and, quite simply, nothing seemed to be anything. How or why this realization led me to understand I’m not sure, but the proverbial light bulb flashed over my head and instantly, the illogical world I was now living in made perfect sense.

“I’m dead aren’t I?” I asked, the epiphany washing over me like cold water, only considerably less refreshing. Tom smiled.

“Course ya are friend.”

“Are you dead?”

“Well one ought to reckon,” Tom chuckled, looking back to his comrades with the shovels. “We all are.”

“Where…” I started, clearing my throat lightly as I tried to gather up the courage to ask the question. “Where are we?” I asked.

“Now see friend, that is a good question,” Tom sat down on a slab of chalky rock. He licked him lips in thought, his handsome face twisting slightly. “We all got our guesses, we all got our feelin’s, but there’s only one thing that we can say with certainty,” Tom nodded, lifting his hat slightly. He squinted against the sun and locked eyes with me. “This sure ain’t where we were hopin’ to end up.”

“You think this is Hell?” I asked, sitting down next to Tom so he wouldn’t have to strain his eyes. He shrugged dismissively.

“I don’t think so. Jake over there does. And Max over at the far end thinks this is a kinda, atonement area: where you can make up for your sins and alike…” Tom trailed off.

“What do you think then?”

“Well,” Tom coughed rather suddenly, moving his entire body in the opposite direction from where I was sitting. His large frame quaked as he shook from the spasms. As quickly as his spell had come over him it was gone and he was looking back to me. “Pardon. Anyways, I’m not even sure how to reckon a guess on where this is. I think Max is probably on to something because people are always comin’ and a-goin’ here. There was a fella named Jack who just up and disappeared a few days ago and there’s been a load of em before Jack. There will be a load of em after Jack too I reckon. So I guess callin’ this place, oh what’s the word, Purgatory ain’t that bad of an idea…”

The silence that we sat in wasn’t comfortable, nor was it made any more awkward due to the other’s company. The silence was difficult purely for the information we were both thinking over. There was nothing that could be said to calm neither the situation nor our nerves about the uncertainty of it all. This was simply one of those times that the awkward silence was something to be dealt with.

“How long have you been here Tom?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know bout that,” he answered, furrowing his brow slightly as he looked off to the sun disappearing over the horizon. “See, the sun ain’t real; it don’t come up. We’ve taken shifts and it goes from dusk to dawn. We’ve tried just takin’ off a few hours and seein’ if that lines it up and it don’t: it’s like we ain’t supposed to know what time it is…” Tom trailed off, his face twisting into sorrow for the first time in the conversation. “I wish I could tell ya.”

“When did you die?”

“1848 if I remember. I was minin’ out in California and…” Tom struggled with the memory. “In all honesty I don’t remember much from then no more. Was that long ago?” Tom turned to me, his face filled with hope. I wasn’t sure what answer he was hoping for: neither seemed like they would make this better.

“It was almost a century ago Tom,” I answered. Tom nodded, looking back out to the horizon.

“And how did you die friend?” he asked me, his eyes still fixed on the orange orb in front of us.

“I was fighting in a war. A World War. We have these things called air planes, which are things that fly through the sky that carry people…” I started.

“Yeah, Jake talks about ‘em. He was what they called a pilot.” Tom smiled, seeming proud of his knowledge. I smiled too.

“Yeah, so was I. I was shooting at our enemy and, well, it would appear someone was faster than I was,” I sighed, looking down to my hands. The sky seemed to be taunting me, mocking me for falling from it. The blue angered me in a way I wasn’t used to.

“Hey, we’ve all been beat here,” Tom smiled, hitting me on the back again. “Come on now, stand up. S’bout time for us to start headin’ into the tents and gettin’ some sleep.”

“Tents? What tents?” I asked. Tom pointed off behind him casually. I looked over and, sure enough, there were tents set up for each of the many diggers working on the hole. They had not been there before.

“I know, don’t worry. You’ll get used to it, just like you’ll get used to putting your head down and immediately wakin’ up,” Tom smiled. He swung his arm around my shoulders and started moving, leading me back towards the hole as we walked in silence again.

“Tom?” I started, looking to the taller man. “Do you think I’m going to be here for a long time?” The sound of fear and desperation in my voice was something that I was completely unfamiliar with. In all my life, when confronted with terrifying situations I had always managed to keep my cool. I suppose this was hardly a situation that I had ever been in before.

“That I can’t answer friend,” he sighed, his lips pressed into a tight grimace. “I reckon you’ll be here as long as you need be.”

—

© Some rights reserved. “As I Woke” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license.

Christina Mason is an English major with aspirations of becoming an author, particularly in the sci-fi and horror genres. She can be contacted at christinapmason@gmail.com. [Website.]