It was a chilly afternoon, weak sunlight scarcely warming the few people sitting in the square or those walking their dogs. At the corner, two men stood across from each other engaged in a sometimes frenetic sometimes contemplative game of chess. In a flurry of moves their hands nearly collided as pawns, rooks, and bishops attacked and retreated. Then, like the kings they rarely moved, the two men stood still for minutes just surveying the board.
Whether moving pieces or considering the board, throughout the game the two talked constantly to, at, and near each other. A stream words tumbled from each man’s mouth. Now and then they responded to what the other had said, but most often they seemed to be sharing some internal monolog of strategy and tactics, of regrets for bad moves and compliments for good ones, of random thoughts that seemed to have nothing to do with anything.
When the game ended, they reset the board and started a new one, all the while talking without interruption. “We’ve done this a thousand times,” he seemed to say to me in answer the unspoken question in my head, “and he’s beat me most of them.”