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Chess and Writer's Block
“It works out better this way,” I said.
“What does?”
“Talking instead of writing,” I said. She crinkled her nose at me, a subtle cue that she wasn’t buying what I was selling.
“I think you’re a fantastic writer. But I also think you need a little more faith in yourself. Stop all this self loathing crap and be realistic.”
“What about my writing, exactly, is so fantastic?”
“You write dialogue like there’s no tomorrow. You work hard on your prose and it shows,” she said. I lowered my head and stared at my coffee cup wondering how to respond. I briefly flirted with the question of how Starbucks was able to garner so many customers all over the nation. Probably had something to do with location. She snapped me out of my brief reverie by continuing.
“I know it sounds like I’m a poet and I don’t know it, but I’m serious Dan, your writing really has…that certain something. It’s like, even when you aren’t saying anything in your prose, or really giving a lot of description I can still see what you’re talking about. It’s like a movie inside my head…and you wrote it!”
“Thank you. I just don’t have anything to write about. Not one damned thing. Fiction is more fun than life, and right now my life is so boring there isn’t anything worth carving on a piece of paper. I just think talking, especially in this case, is better.”
“Would you stop it with your self deprecating tone already? Jesus! Your life may be boring, but so is everyone else’s,” she said. I like Lindsay but she can be a difficult friend to have, especially when she’s right.
We sat in an uncomfortable silence. Most people thought us a couple which couldn’t be further from the truth. We considered each other brother and sister, and not just because we were ten years apart in age or because we weren’t sexually attracted to one another. It couldn’t be further from the truth because we were each totally in love with our individuality, our freedom from the shackles that romantic relationships provide to less suspecting victims. She and I are on the level with each other and it’s nice to have a female friend that isn’t after you and it’s nice to be a friend that isn’t after her. The sky above us remained blue and a few tables over two women sat down with cups of steaming coffee and started jabbering on and laughing.
I finally made my third move in our chess game. I brought my king’s knight out to the middle of the board threatening her white pawn in the center.
“I didn’t see that coming,” she said sardonically.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” I said. She disturbed me by bringing her queen out early but I couldn’t make the connection of what she intended to do with that. I sat and pondered and took another sip of my coffee. It was hot on a hot day, a combination that people who did not live in Houston Texas could never understand and that I would never expect them to understand.
A bird hopped along my side of the table on the ground, it was jet black, its beak slightly ajar as though I might have some piece of donut to pick off and throw down to it. I pretended not to notice and to concentrate on my next move. I wondered what it would be like to write about this sequence of events and realized it couldn’t be done with the fullness of detail that alone was reserved for reality.
I looked up at Lindsay and smiled, seeing my opportunity for a truly good move to threaten her queen. I moved my knight out of her way and left my bishop exposed to threaten the white queen in silence. Lindsay nodded her head, a familiar chess player tick that grew on everyone I’ve ever watched or played against who knows the game well. The tick is a dawning type of understanding about what your opponent is up to. She moved her queen back relieving me somewhat for the time being.
I lost that game. Five games later she said we were done, and she always knew. She drove us back to her apartment where I talked for a few more minutes before she said she was dizzy and needed to get back to bed. We made arrangements to get together for another round of chess the next week and I left.
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