Trail of Ants

The red-faced King of the South paced nervously around his ageing palace, closely followed by a fidgeting guard. If either dared peer out through the ornate wooden shutters and across the blood-tainted river, they would of been overcome with terror. Advancing towards them at a frightful pace were a pair of canons in search of a mount, two intense looking horsemen, a shuffling pair of holy men and a pentad of pesky pawns. Just visible on the misty horizon, stood the palace of his ageing adversary. Within the stone sanctum paced his royal rival, robed immaculately in hereditary velvets of black. I took a gulp of Tsingtao, ‘your move, loser‘. The ‘Concubine of Chess’ and my current archenemy, ignored my tactical taunts and swiftly took aim with her Chinese Chess piece. She followed with a fearless sequence of freshman moves, intent on seducing my King into an knee-trembling demise. Concubines throughout history would have been outrageously envious of Reb’s panache as a short time later an eerie silence descended, and it was over. I gulped the last of the Tsingtao and shot a blurry gaze towards the two dispirited Kings, stubbornly perched upon my fantasy’s thrones in a now barren, death-swept kingdom. ‘Draw?’, I proposed. We agreed, but next time I won’t let her off so easy. Continue reading ‘Answers on a Postcard’