short fiction · 2026-10-23

The Unplayed Game

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

I sit before a board that holds no pieces, yet its surface glows with the faint imprint of countless imagined moves. Each empty square becomes a lantern, casting shadows that suggest stories waiting to be told. Many will not believe they can be seen, and if any man dared whisper them into the air, he would be called a dreamer or a fool, but the silence amplifies their weight. I trace the gaps as if they were rivers, each uncharted path humming with possibility. In this quiet, I discover that absence itself is a narrative seed, and the act of noticing it becomes an act of creation.