Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Ready
That's what you're supposed to be by the time you get old. I guess I'm ready. Yes...you could say I am ready.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Game-changer
Hop. Hop. Hop. I'll play black, and you'll play red. Oh, look, you're out of pieces. King me. Checkers; a much simpler game than chess and yet one requiring just as much strategy even at the worst of times.
Even the lowliest Pawn can become a Queen, can't it? But only if it makes it to the other side of the board, and, let's be honest; how many have?
Maybe a few, but they never lasted long. They were immediately surrounded by the pieces of their opponent. What could they ever hope to do but distract from the King for a moment?
It was never their own King they served, though it was their own that they hoped to protect. In this game the Black King is the strongest, most volatile, most valuable piece. And He knows it. And He loves it. And He loves us, and we love Him. And I play my song for Him, and hope He puts off my punishment, the one I so rightly deserve just for being alive during His reign. What greater crime is there?
Fiddler
Even the lowliest Pawn can become a Queen, can't it? But only if it makes it to the other side of the board, and, let's be honest; how many have?
Maybe a few, but they never lasted long. They were immediately surrounded by the pieces of their opponent. What could they ever hope to do but distract from the King for a moment?
It was never their own King they served, though it was their own that they hoped to protect. In this game the Black King is the strongest, most volatile, most valuable piece. And He knows it. And He loves it. And He loves us, and we love Him. And I play my song for Him, and hope He puts off my punishment, the one I so rightly deserve just for being alive during His reign. What greater crime is there?
Fiddler
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Black Knight to f6
I first became fond of music when I was but a toddler, and took up the fiddle at age nine. Like all beginners, I was not very good. For a short time, my mother offered me two dimes not to play during the day, and my father offered me two dimes not to play during the night. I quickly grew in skill, and was able to play for much higher prices - and this time, due to the high quality of my songs and not the low. All throughout high school I played the fiddle. (I've never attended college.) When I was, perhaps, fourteen, I took a liking to chess. It was an odd fondness, one that I had never experienced before. The simple thrill of crushing an opponent in the opening moves, the joy of knowing that your enemy thinks he may be able to win - right before you kill him...ah. It surpassed even the delectable feeling of arson.
When I was twenty, maybe twenty-one years of age, I watched as my parents were murdered by a serial killer who had escaped from jail. He left me alive, I think, that I could attest to his evil. He labeled himself as evil, in any case. Worse. "There's good, bad, evil...and me," as I recall. Similarly to how I watched him kill my only living relatives, I watched my own hands kill him nearly sixteen years later. It was difficult getting in and out of the prison where he was being held, and even harder to do so with the intent of killing him, but it was an enjoyable challenge. Almost fun.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I had tried to do the deed before being touched by the Black King's love, I would have been shot down or captured. But the greatest weapon in chess is, as they say, to have the next move. That night, I had already won the game. All I had to do was prove it to my victim. To my King. To myself. To my parents, who, in retrospect, were not worth avenging. The reason I had to kill the killer was to show him true evil. Something all men and women must come to respect and understand if they are to survive and thrive.
Fiddler
When I was twenty, maybe twenty-one years of age, I watched as my parents were murdered by a serial killer who had escaped from jail. He left me alive, I think, that I could attest to his evil. He labeled himself as evil, in any case. Worse. "There's good, bad, evil...and me," as I recall. Similarly to how I watched him kill my only living relatives, I watched my own hands kill him nearly sixteen years later. It was difficult getting in and out of the prison where he was being held, and even harder to do so with the intent of killing him, but it was an enjoyable challenge. Almost fun.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I had tried to do the deed before being touched by the Black King's love, I would have been shot down or captured. But the greatest weapon in chess is, as they say, to have the next move. That night, I had already won the game. All I had to do was prove it to my victim. To my King. To myself. To my parents, who, in retrospect, were not worth avenging. The reason I had to kill the killer was to show him true evil. Something all men and women must come to respect and understand if they are to survive and thrive.
Fiddler
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
White Bishop to d5
Killing was hard at first. It grew exponentially easier. The nameless Runners, the oblivious Stalked, or even the occasional servant of the Black King do not strike any emotional chord with you. So, will details help me? Will they assist the Fiddler in his cause? No. So instead I direct your attention to another time from my past, one from four years ago.
I was at a concert. The Black King had plans for the night, or so He told me. As opposed to my usual station in the orchestra itself, I was the conductor that night. After the first piece I walked offstage and announced into the microphone, "Now, a piece from Tchaikovsky." The audience in the hall seemed disinterested until I brought the cannon forth. It wasn't loaded at the time, but the audience didn't know that. It made the proper impression. The audience panicked. They stampeded out of the concert hall. The orchestra was made of stronger stuff, but when I pantomimed lighting the weapon they fled as well. When all were out of the building, I doused the floors in gasoline and rolled a cannonball into the barrel of the cannon. The fuse was just long enough to reach the soaked carpets.
A matchbox. A match. A strike. A flame. A drop.
Arson. A glorious activity. Truly fantastic. There is no sight like it.
The cannon's boom rocked the once-still night. This was no simple act of terrorism - there was indeed a greater plan. Unfortunately I was never told what it was.
Fiddler
I was at a concert. The Black King had plans for the night, or so He told me. As opposed to my usual station in the orchestra itself, I was the conductor that night. After the first piece I walked offstage and announced into the microphone, "Now, a piece from Tchaikovsky." The audience in the hall seemed disinterested until I brought the cannon forth. It wasn't loaded at the time, but the audience didn't know that. It made the proper impression. The audience panicked. They stampeded out of the concert hall. The orchestra was made of stronger stuff, but when I pantomimed lighting the weapon they fled as well. When all were out of the building, I doused the floors in gasoline and rolled a cannonball into the barrel of the cannon. The fuse was just long enough to reach the soaked carpets.
A matchbox. A match. A strike. A flame. A drop.
Arson. A glorious activity. Truly fantastic. There is no sight like it.
The cannon's boom rocked the once-still night. This was no simple act of terrorism - there was indeed a greater plan. Unfortunately I was never told what it was.
Fiddler
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