72 Iss Chess Mah Mum

In which our Hero finds himself headed off to the wars

My mother burst into my office as she is wont to do, but instead of walking closer to save me from the scurvy or starvation that must have happened in the hour or two since the last time she gave me a snack, or talking to me about whatever’s on her mind, there was just quiet behind me, so I turned around to find out what she was doing. It wasn’t especially exciting a reveal, though, she was just leaning against my door jamb, head tilted as she just looked around and waited.

I asked her what was going on, trying not to laugh at how nonchalantly she was waiting and how chalantly her nonchalance became when she *never* *ever* does this any other time. She said, and I think I can quote this despite the passage of days since the weekend…

“Let’s play chess!”

Nope, didn’t see that one coming.

My mother is kind of an oddball in the family. She’s often off in her own world, and spends plenty of time making strange concoctions in the kitchen or tending to her plants. In addition, age has worn out some of her hearing and even with hearing aids it means that sometimes she doesn’t get the right cue. As a result, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the fact that she’s a very bright girl. I don’t have that luxury, because she spent as much time teaching little me as my father did, and probably more. Unending math drills mostly, but she also pressed me through English exercises and helped to make my wee little brain into the nightmare that it is today.

She’s also the one who taught me to play chess, and was one of my main opponents in my early life. I got older and my parents were busy taking care of life and me and didn’t have as much time to play games with me like that and I don’t think I’ve played chess with my mother since… well decades. At least two. Possibly three.

And now my mom wanted to play with me? I put my keyboard down and went to find a board.

I’ve definitely improved since childhood, though I am still a poor player of the game and unpracticed. She had to be reminded of how pieces moved, and unfortunately the only chess sets I can find right now are artistically interesting but kind of difficult for someone reacquainting to the game. Abstract shapes are oh so pretty, but we ended up playing with my souvenir Australia set with Kangaroo kings and Koala queens and Spiny Echidna pawns and not horse to be found for a knight.

But we played, slow and unaggressive as my mother played the way I’ve see little kids play, struggling to protect every single piece from capture. Eventually she half complained that there’s no way not to lose a piece and then things got interested. I accidentally checkmated her two moves later, which was embarrassing because I had only meant to check her while giving her room to maneuver out of it. We rolled back a move and the game went on. Eventually I checkmated her again, still not intending to end the game, but with no real way to leave room to recover so we stopped.

I’m going to do some digging, I know I have at least one standard wood set somewhere. And if not I’ll happily buy her a standard set. She wants to play more because she read that it’s something that helps keep away Alzheimer’s. Me, I just like that my mom asked me to come out and play.

I’ve already put contact information into a more official farewell to this place. Everything since that entry is just doodling in the notebook because there are a few pages left. Just in case, though, good bye.