Black Pawn to a5

I'm an old, old man. I've played many a sold-out concert, and quite a few where nobody came. I've noticed that some of my best performances come from when I play in the streets. The people of this world are both enraptured and repulsed at my prowess.

There was no slow descent into madness for me. There was only a week between when I first met the Black King and when He took me for His own. It was not a simple introduction, nor a particularly complex one. I had come home from a friend's musical, in the orchestra of which I had participated. A young child, a boy, I think, stood at the huge tree outside my apartment building. His cat had scampered up the branches and the boy could not get her to come down. I offered to rescue her for him. I set my case on the sidewalk and climbed up the tree, awkwardly, but familiarly, like a lame mountain goat.

In the tree, something touched me. Something slid my fingers off of the branches, seconds before I reached the cat. I fell, and when I awoke again the doctors told me my back was broken. They told me to rest for a time and they would transfer me to a hospital where I could be properly treated and cared for. I paid no attention to them. Sometimes in my dreams I can still see the shocked faces of the doctors when I swung out of bed and left the clinic mere hours after I was admitted. Sometimes, in my nightmares, they are shocked at the things I have done since then. But I hold no regret. No remorse.

My case was right where I left it. The cat was spread across the street. I did not see the boy again for two months.

Fiddler