Time and Again: Beginnings, Chess, and Idiocy

      Move the piece, Raf, Zhayne demanded for the umpteenth time, clearly irritated; not even the soothing sounds of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, playing from an old Ipod dock, was enough to temper him, as his host was yet again staring off into space.

     Raf, for his part, was staring at his king, the only piece he had left on the board (Zhayne had a rook, a knight, and a pawn that had just become a queen).

     The two had been playing chess for the better part of an hour, on an old set Raf found while he had been out salvaging. He technically didn't need to do that anymore, as no library in any self-respecting High-Class city would accept his restorations now that he was Infected, and hunted by the Global Government.
 
     Still, it was something to do, and he liked it.

     And every once in a while, he came across something that was worth keeping, like the chess set he was currently using to play his parasite. All the pieces were present, relatively intact, and the board was only slightly torn.

     That said, it was infinitely engaging, or to use Zhayne's words, utterly devastating and annoying, for Raf to examine the chipped pieces.


     Raf had spent the better part of their game holding up his pieces and staring at them, wondering about the nature of existence. He assumed the set had been discarded because some of the pieces were broken, and the board was torn.

    It was no longer aesthetically pleasing, and therefore had no use, no purpose to its previous owners.

    But wasn't the purpose of a chess set to entertain? To emulate the strategies of medieval warfare, and teach its players the virtues of patience and sacrifice for a greater good?

    It may be broken, but not enough that it didn't have purpose, usefulness.

    And Raf found that beautiful.

    Which in turn led Raf to question the concept of beauty, and his own interpretations of it. How does one learn of beauty, how does one define it in terms another can understand?

    Was it something one experienced, and defined as he lived? Or something which was born to all people, and then applied to what they found beautiful?

     Raf believes that there is beauty in broken things. Tragic perhaps, but also hopeful, because broken things can always be fixed. It was why he did what he did for a living.

     But even if they aren't fixed, they can still stand; they endure.

     The broken will outlast everything. When man is gone and all is ended, his creations will remain.

      Bent, battered, broken by time.

      But still here. Everlasting.

      Raf tried explaining this to Zhayne, and the parasite responded with a grunt, then told him to move his bishop to take his rook.

      Zhayne liked to philosophize as much as Raf did, but there was a time and place for it, and the middle of a war wasn't it. And he told him so.

  
      Which launched Raf into another moment, and that time he argued that philosophizing was at the heart of war.

       For what was war, if not a conflict in ideologies, spurred and encouraged by the inability to reach understanding on both sides?

       Zhayne told him that a soldier who worried about something as abstract as that could do nothing but die, and proceeded to take Raf's knight.

       And the evening whiled away like that, as host and parasite battled away, over chess and not chess.


      After Raf's third space-out, Zhayne had begun to wonder why he had chosen this man to be his host.


      Zhayne was free. After months of lab tests, needles, electroshocks, and, oddly enough, Rorschach tests, Zhayne was free.

      The days of pain were at an end. But mobility was a problem; he longed for the days when he was still a wolf, his legs fluid and strong. He was being hunted, the scientists wanted him back.

     He knew he could not survive long without a body.


     He needed a host.


    So he traveled.

    He slithered into crates. Hitched onto vehicles unseen. Until he managed to latch himself unto a truck headed for a dump in the Slums.

    If there was anywhere Zhayne could find a host that would not immediately return to this city, and submit to the Government as one of the Tamed, it would be there, where it was said The Harmony made their home.


    He waited a long time.

    It was cold here at night, even for one like him. He had found shelter in a book that stood tented, held up by its two sides. The pages cascaded around him, and the cover held against the wind, but he still shivered.

   Zhayne had come to consider this book home, and was glad when his host decided to keep it. He'd learned its title then: Paradise Lost.

   Zhayne didn't like to read, he preferred music. But that one book was sacred to him, and he felt it was misnamed; to him, it had been a paradise gained.


    The day had been like any other, with one exception: there was someone here. There was a hand reaching out, snaking its way into his home and picking it up.

   Zhayne didn't hesitate. He struck.

   Raf had jumped back in surprise, and a bit of pain, dropping the book.


   He then stared at his right wrist, where his vein now throbbed and pulsed. He ran his hand over it, just feeling it.

   He did that for so long that Zhayne worried his new host was mentally incapacitated.


   Then he spoke. "So, what's your name?"


    And they had gotten along swimmingly since. Well, haltingly. It turned out that Raf's space-out moments were far too frequent, and he had a penchant for getting into trouble, ESPECIALLY when Trevor was around.

    But damn it all if that hadn't increased Zhayne's respect for his friend. It was nice to have fun. It wasn't something he'd ever had much of.


    But none of that really mattered now as Zhayne yelled as loud as he could possibly manage, "MOVE THE PIECE RAF!"


    "AHHH!" Raf jumped, knocking over the chess set and sending the pieces flying. Trevor, who had fallen asleep on the bed, an old issue of Batman, Inc. on his chest, woke with a cry as the king's jagged cross poked him in the eye.


     Trevor's yell caused Raf to jump again, and they somehow collided, sending them to opposite sides of the room.


 
     Trevor and Raf stared at each other for a moment (Trevor with a hand over his punctured eye), and then they began to laugh.



     Zhayne sighed. You're both idiots.