A Momentary Lapse of Reason - 21
A Novella
21. 为非作歹[i]
(wèi fēi zuo dǎi)
When twilight fades and the light begins,
A life dies and the death creeps in.
Over the towers with crowning red and white lettering and running from the edge of the inlet to the nature-made hills that surrounded Hong Kong, Maggie was standing watching the boats cruise down ground green water. She needed to get her chess brain back which had been scattered by all of the hammerings that had happened over the last few days because it was beyond recognition. She did not know if she could do this because her concentration and memory were enormous in their toll. She looked around her and saw hundreds of people who were all hoping that they would be good enough to make the next level. Most of them were of course young men, with odd obsessions. Each one that she looked at had some form of odd, mostly in the face where the two halves were not close to symmetrical. They were also badly dressed in worn-out jeans and T-shirts; which they will spend until they play part of a statistic on a government chart.[ii] As if they were already spirits in the material world.[iii] Lonely people in a hot room.[iv]
This was a far cry from Maggie’s owner attire which was a cheongsam in blue with dragons intermixed across all of the available space. She was there to wipe the competition beyond recognition, and her attire showed this as much as anything. When illusions are in a net you simply reel them in.[v] This place would not be the ultimate test of cerebral fitness.[vi]
She could also-rans and the woodpusher almost instantaneously. But there were a few individuals who were at least neatly dressed, and she had to inspect those more thoroughly. You could see how some of them did not handle chess pieces that often nor did they participate online. Thus, they could be disposed of like a waitress in a cocktail.[vii] Then the doors opened and walking in came Lucas. He was not dressed casually. Whereas other people wore jeans he wore khakis, whereas other people wore T-shirts, he was dressed in a white broadcloth. In every way, he looked like somebody who worked a job and was here to claim victory over the wood pressures that would be put up against him where the streets have no name.[viii]
His face had a smirk that was broadly brimmed and cleaned with confidence. He had also not caught Maggie, yet. But she did not care when he sighted her, because she knew that he was going to be the one whose play mattered. She knew that she was better than 99% of the players. One time she had played 12 of them and one every single game, and there were other times when she played the entire gaggle with everyone else ogling either the play or something more carnal. Many of them knew her from the games that she played hoping to be saved by zero to somehow win.[ix] Most of them were fearful for the construction that she was going to level with her hollow gold and her Bette Davis eyes.[x] They looked down rather than meet her eyes, hoping that they would be dispatched quickly when she played them. Don’t pay the ferryman because the rain has stopped.[xi]
Paradoxically, her skill had degraded their desire, because who can ask for a date after the other party had destroyed every bit of manliness that they possessed? If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody calling?[xii]
So, she stood on the nylon and wool wall wall-to-wall carpet wondering if she could grab a cup of kafe while she was waiting in line. She looked down and saw the ornate tigers dancing on the rug, staring at the players with eager tongues, out of the corner of her eye.[xiii]
The first part was speed chess to weed out the weak. The ones who would be singing a space-age love song through clouded eyes.[xiv] 15 minutes for each player, but Maggie made sure she took not more than 5 with poetry in motion and science.[xv] Where are they to go now that far?[xvi]
There were faces, faces, faces watching every move and not understanding half of it. The time war on games was more competitive, the seats filled up and then there was standing as the audience did not look at the pieces but at the faces, faces, faces and watched for that telltale sign that one person knew that they had been defeated. It was the point where it was clear stopped looking down at the pieces and started looking sullenly towards the other player. The victorious player also looked at their opponent but in a staring fascination that reminded people of a tiger shot on a hunt. Of course, Maggie was in the latter category. Pristine in the way she held herself straight upwards even as her opponents slouched down like a dog whimpering for mercy.
One time she looked up ready to stare at her poor defeated victim, when she saw something that completely surprised her. Behind her opponent was Tal, in the one suit that he wore.
Tal placed his finger on his lips. “No one can see me here, because I am in your imagination.”
In all the world this was something that would never occur to her either in reality, dreams, or hallucination.
The drapes were opened so that even people out on the street could watch. Even the towers might have stared. Only the sun did not have any interest. It was more concerned with the retreating clouds.
Then there was a break so that the remaining players could down noodles with soy sauce. Many of the other players were chatting among themselves because the morning had been a mere trial that they had to get through to begin playing the real matches in the afternoon and well into the evening.
However, this was not the case with Maggie instead she went behind a billboard advertising the chess match and looked up in Tal’s face.
“You look very real to me.”
“That is because I am the way you remember me. And remember every move that you made. But remember, in real life, I was a wood pusher.”
“And what are you now?”
“I am the secret place in your mind which has conjugated and ruminated.”
The sun hid behind the large picturesque window and had the same moment the blacken clouds became cumulonimbus. A stream of light pierced through the gloom and it centered around Kit. There was some connection, Maggie thought, but she did not know exactly what it was that was communicated.
“Why are you here?”
“There is something you forgot.”
In all the world a puzzle looked consume her face. Here we are now now.[xvii]
Tal took her hand. “I must go soon. It has to do with you changing.” With that, Tal disappeared leaving Maggie to stare at the podium with its boards for the real games. She stared at the Bishops and found nothing wrong. Her eyes darted about to the unfinished tables which were now being disassembled because the real games were played on single boards on a single table with black tablecloths between the wood of the table and the word of the board.
With nonchalance, she looked over at the audience. She glanced over at the coffee urns and tea pictures.
And then she looked again at the bishops and realized she needed to change the nights as well. The bishops were always white or black throughout the entire game, but the nights alternated white and black with each move. And she realized that both of them needed to be free because without the board you did not know which color they belonged to.
That meant that she needed to figure out how to replace both the Bishops and the Knights when playing Lucan. The clouds grew darker still as if to focus on how difficult it would be. She was living in twilight.[xviii]
It was at that moment that she saw Kit and had an idea. Since there were a few minutes left to the break for the first game she she rose gracefully out of the darkness and into the light. Kit grew ever larger until he was all her sight could contain. At the same time, her memory was the images, of places that were not of this world but which she imagined in a frame of hallucinated fog. Were they even there at all or was this only her imagination? Would she wake up and find that everything that she experienced was just a dream? And if so, where was the reality that dreamed a dream that she thought was life itself? But she put this aside and saw the eyes and smelled the sweat from all of the people. It was at that point that she realized that this was real because smell is rarely imagined.
Now face being the only orb she addressed him rather self-consciously: “I have a problem, and I wanted to talk up about how to solve it.”
There was puzzlement on his face because this was not the way that he imagined she would talk to him. But he then realized that there was a barrier to her thoughts which he had crossed and in crossing it he was now part of “we.” That bond that two people have is shown by the way they talk to each other in mid-sentence. Hello, hello, hello, I don’t know why you say goodbye.[xix]
So, he answered in the way that one talks to oneself: “And what is the problem which you want to solve?”
In her pocket, she took out a knight and then showed it to him. “I need to switch the Knights.”
For a long moment, he thought whether he wanted to know why, but he realized that “we” already knew that, so he just had to ask: “And you want me to swap the Knights while you swap the bishops?”
All that got was a nod for yes.
He took the two knights from her and formed a plan to reverse them with no one seeing.
As he walked away she knew that his problems were now her problems. All of the intricacies that his life needed, she would be there for him. But first Lucan and to be demolished. But that was not hard, because, though he did not know it, they were playing at a higher level of logic than he could possibly understand.
She sat down in front of Lucan. To any eyes but her and Kit all of the pieces you ordered. It was her last game at the match. And winner of this game would ascend to the next level. She looked at Lucan and was ready for him.
She once again touched the pieces as if she were trying to plant them in a deeper form. It was the Dragon in her mind’s eye.
She was playing white and her most standard opening was the English, which was the reverse of the Sicilian. Lucan took the challenge and opened with e5, playing the Sicilian in reverse. It was painful to see him struggle with the opening and in the middle game he was completely destroyed. Then the audience watched not the pieces but the faces of the players.
She watched his face and smiled when it turned upwards and knocked over the King.
She smiled. His face was all that she needed. His face was like a mask but it did not disguise the pain that he felt. He had assumed that his hold over the Dragon would be sufficient to rattle her and thus defeat her. But it was because the black and white on the board were not the true and false of the pieces.
She never meant to be so bad to him.[xx] She had meant to be worse. What should I be? All apologies.[xxi]
She looked up into the face of her defeated opponent.
She had done evil.
She was living in twilight.[xxii]
[i] Do evil.
[ii] Reference to The Police, “Invisible Sun”
[iii] Reference to The Police, “Spirits in the Material World”
[iv] Reference to Styx, “Lonely People”
[v] Reference to Peter Gabriel, “Solsbury Hill”
[vi] Reference to Murray Head, “One Night in Bangkok”
[vii] Reference to Human League, “Don’t You Want You Me?”
[viii] Reference to U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
[ix] Reference to The Fixx, “Saved by Zero”
[x] Reference to Kim, “Bette Davis Eyes”
[xi] Reference to de Burgh, “Don't Pay The Ferryman.”
[xii] Reference to Laura Brannigan, “Gloria”
[xiii] Reference to Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly”
[xiv] Reference to A Flock of Seagulls, “A Space Age Love Song”
[xv] Reference to Thomas Dolby, “She Blind Me Science”
[xvi] Reference to Golden Earring, “Twilight Zone”
[xvii] Reference to Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
[xviii] ELO, “Telephone Line”
[xix] Beatles, “Hello, Goodbye”
[xx] Reference to Asia, “Heat of the Moment”
[xxi] Reference to Nirvana, “All Apologies”
[xxii] ELO, “Telephone Line”