If anything, it was getting worse. Every night I would have a horrible nightmare. The most common theme was a chessboard. A massive expanse of black and white covering two city blocks. Most of the time I could see the two master, controlling the army. An ancient man guided the knights flawlessly across the board, slowly chipping away at the black army. His opponent was a twenty something guy wearing a sharp black suit. Nothing about the black master seemed particularly bad until you saw his eye.
He was a cyclops. An absolutely massive eye dominated his forward bloodshot and cold with a pure black pupil, always studying but never anticipating. After a little bit, an illegal piece would appear. He was half black and half white. A simple bystander that stood right behind enemy lines. To the black he was a pawn. A simple piece that could easilly be sacrificed if it came to it. But he was more than that to the knights.
His white half was a king. If we lost him it would be all over. The game would end with our troops in confusion. Every night I jumped across that board at the whim of the old man. Never losing, never winning. Every piece that I took was replaced by another, the enemy could replace lost men. I couldn't we dodged and attacked, never losing anyone, but never winning anything. The game never ended.
The cops came a couple times. The people I made play were worried about my mental health. Every time they showed up I acted as sane as possible and they let it slide, The one tiem they were actually going to arrest me I handed them the bail right there. I didn't have time to go to the slammer. The mail man had put me in a tight corner and I was working out a strategy to get out.
