short fiction · 2026-10-23

Quiet Moves

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the hushed expanse of an empty board, I sensed the lingering echo of unplayed moves, a silent dialogue of possibilities. Many will not believe they can be seen, and if any man shall say, swear, and stiffly maintain, though he be discreet and wise, judicious and learned, that he hath seen them. The air seemed to carry the weight of those imagined games, as if the very fabric of thought were stitched with potential. Marcus of his credit told Psellus that he had often seen them. They account him a timorous fool, a melancholy dizzard, a weak fellow, a dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn him, laugh him to scorn, and yet the board remained still, waiting.