I am awake late into the night, gripping the balcony railing for quite some time. Below, I see a street dog lying miserably near the gate, drenched from the rain. No other soul is visible. The dog slips on the puddle, hits the lamp post, and barks out, licking its injured area. A heavy gust of wind strikes the mango tree in the courtyard. A few twigs fall from the tree, breaking slowly onto the ground. Thunder strikes from a distance, and I hear a soft knock at the door. I turn back, and the light turns off without any warning.
Another knock comes, this time a little louder. The door opens slowly. I sense the presence of some unworthy spirit, one that dares to seduce a soul onto the path of darkness.
The weak crescent moonlight falls on the pathway. There is no one to be seen, but a foul breath of death suffocates the environment—the breath of some unworthy spirit!
The clock moves its hands, making a constant 'tick-tock,' 'tick-tock' sound. The dog barks again, a sound of relief that momentarily relieves the cursing loneliness in my room.
I wish I could have run away from everything, from the choices of fate. But fate makes a great deal of notion for selection, allowing one to become the other person we always wanted to be. That other dark and twisted person you become after a certain period of manipulation. Now, I am not only part of it, but at the end line. I wish I had a messiah to guide me away from the path of darkness!
Where is my messiah? Is he the one present in my room, at this hour of loneliness? Is he here to guide me from the path of darkness toward truth and justice, infusing freedom to upset the corrupt order with the chants and prayers of our life?
The moonlight flickers toward my small, round dining table. I see a chessboard with all its pieces intact in their places. I see a hand covered with white dust as it slowly embraces all the chess pieces together without touching them, as if every piece has its own life form. The spirit moves its hand upwards, raising it hypnotically with two fingers in a gesture to come and play the game.
Deep in this luminous path, filled with fear and wonder, I pull the chair back and sit opposite the mysterious spirit. I am seeing things—things which no mortal has seen before. I am looking at the chessboard, and then I turn my head toward the mysterious hand. But I cannot see the face or the body of the one sitting on the other side. The simian darkness, I believe.
I look at the chessboard; I have been set to play the white pieces. The hand points a finger, commencing the play. I raise my hand above the board. I fist my hand for a moment of nervousness and then take the first step with a deep breath. I initiate the game by moving the White Knight from the right. The Dusty White Hand makes its first move on the black pieces: the Black Knight on the opposite side. Next, I move the third White Pawn from the right. My opponent moves the second Black Pawn from the left.
The clock ticks and ticks, but our game never ends! With every breath, I feel the fear of justice. But the mysterious hand never sweats, never tires. I hear the lone mango tree in the courtyard violently rustling with its twigs and leaves.
The game has turned to the twenty-seventh move. My king hides near the left corner with a pawn above it, two other pawns to its left. Behind the king is the Rook, and a close ally, the White Knight, is waiting. I try to raise my defenses with my Bishop, but to no avail. The enemy is trying to clutch over all my pieces. The Black Knight takes one of my pawns with a masterly move.
I am losing this game. This game of chess, where you must play with logic, but my mind is blocked by incoherent thoughts. This is a game where you cannot manipulate a thing. I have been playing it long enough! After all these years, this confounding game of chess is making me take every wrong step so that my enemies can laugh at me over a glass of wine.
The mysterious hand makes a turn. I hear the injured dog continuously barking into this mad darkness. The mango tree rustles heavily and nearly falls onto my balcony, casting its shadow over my building. The moonlight is blocked by such an unusual behavior of nature.
Each and every material possession of my life is trying to gain a life form, bleeding with blood and turning green with a glow visible in the dark. I hear the sound of my award shelf shaking heavily, on the verge of a breakdown. The hand makes a quiet move as it calmly takes my Rook with a simple blow from the top. My White Queen shamelessly betrays me and stays with the enemy pieces. I cannot make her move to turn to my side. That piece is blocked in one corner of the board. I want to kill the Black Rook, but there is no possible movement. They are not playing a fair game, infusing witchcraft. My Queen was once on my side, but now her betrayal will cost me a fortune. She was the strongest, the pillar of the King. But what can a King do without a Queen whom he always adores and loves? My King moves haphazardly, without any guidance. She does not laugh but cries. She loved him once, but betrayal—for something better, something hopeful for the common citizen—made the situation more complex.
Now, on the forty-first move, the White King is surrounded and callously defeated by the Rook, the Black Knight, and the Bishop. The hand stands still in the victorious moment. The chessboard shakes up heavily, cracks from side to side, and explodes. The award shelf breaks down, and the glasses fly over me. I am pulled by a force toward the wall, striking the large hanging mirror, which stabs me from the back. My blood drips into every shattered glass shard and on the mirror as I fall to the floor with slow pain. The dog halts its bark. I catch my breath amid the strange occurrences of the night.
I stand up on my own feet and try to pull the glass from inside me. I turn my head up; I do not see the hand of death. It vanished. The game reminds me of my very own life. I was once an ethical person, but the bureaucratic nature of the work and ethics destroyed my life. For the love of money, I took the side which I never dreamed of aspiring to. My loved ones left me, disgraced me all the way around. My wife shook hands with the law enforcers to strip me of the position I had earned.
Nevertheless, the greedy nature of my life made me earn everything, but I have lost everything I earned so dearly. All into oblivion. This gambling of things, to gamble every single thing of my life, was the worst step a man can take. I hear a sound—the dog. The same dog. I see him as the mango tree moves away from the moonlight. He growls toward me and suddenly jumps over me. I hit the dog back, and he falls onto the glass. But he does not feel the pain. I start to run quickly toward the door and finally, I am out of the room. I take the stairs, which are turning into a kaleidoscopic view of everything, with illusions of dilemma. The dog advances toward me with anger. He wants me to die. I remember I was once charged with a hit-and-run case against a domestic dog, for which I unnecessarily sued the pet's owner. The owner was very poor, but I was shameless and powerful at the same time.
I am running hard into the illusions with never-ending steps, as if someone is pushing me harder toward the end. With a relief, I reach the final stair step. The main gate opens automatically, paving the way for my escape. I am on the street, which is filled with puddles. I turn back for a moment as I see the dog approaching to hunt me down like his feast of revenge. In that distraction, I slip on the puddle and hit myself under the lamp post. It pains me—pains me to hell. So many glasses in my body. I start to remove them one by one. But the dog is nowhere to be seen. To balance myself to stand up, I clasp the handle of the lamp post. Then, a thunderbolt hits the lamp and electrocutes me into the thin air as I swing up near the mango tree like a ball of fire, starting a fire in the courtyard.
My soul has been seized by the same hand as he writes down my entire life's punishment—a fate one cannot prevent. I have made my entrance to hell, where the devil waits for me to announce the desecrator of truth and justice. In the end, the Hand of Death claps for me menacingly as I lose my breath out of madness, which never ends!
THE END