Chess for Three

Invitation. I never get any mail. But every morning, as I brew my coffee, I dutifully check the mailbox. It’s because I keep hoping that one day, I’ll find something that will finally change or kickstart my life.

The mailbox isn’t the only thing I expect so much from. Occasionally, I force myself to attend a concert, hoping for the same, but jazz is barely listened to these days, so staying at home is not entirely my fault. Every year, I also go to the same place by the sea for an art festival. I consider that as another attempt to give life a chance, but I never make friends with strangers, and so hope dies there as well. And friends... I’ve fooled myself too many times into thinking I’m Mother Teresa, which is why I ended up like Mother Courage. I introduced all of them, they hang out and have fun, but I’m too serious for them because I don’t possess unfounded optimism. Something either is or isn’t. Small talk feels like that old phrase: “It’s not that stone Sisyphus.”

That’s why this invitation surprises me. The mailbox is always empty. I don’t read newspapers because they either lie, scare me, or give beauty tips. If I compiled the news I’d get from papers, it would be the perfect recipe for dying a terrible death as a beautiful woman. So, no. Knowing myself, whatever the invitation is for, I won’t go. But I have to admit, it’s nice to know someone remembered me.

Logo. A fallen king piece. Or maybe it’s not fallen. If I turn the invitation sideways, the king is upright. But the invitation is written vertically. Why would I turn it? Maybe that’s the whole point of the logo— introspection. A matter of perspective. Nonsense. Something either is or isn’t. The invitation is written upright, so the king is fallen. What does it say? “Precisely at 15 hours, 10 minutes, and 59 seconds. Sunset Boulevard 23, third and a half floor. You will play a game of chess and find the meaning of life.” I laugh out loud. It’s been a while since I last did. A fallen king, an astrological timestamp, Gloria Swanson’s street in the heart of Absurdistan, and a nonexistent floor. This humor is tailor-made for me. As I was maturing, I found solace from the outside world in absurdity. This has to be the work of someone who knows me. The third-and-a-half floor. Genius! I place the invitation on the kitchen table and continue smiling as I sip my coffee. And then, leaning on the kitchen counter, I keep staring at the invitation while sipping. It would be rude not to respect someone who knows me this well. But in that same case, that person should also know I don’t want to go out. And I stopped caring about “being rude” a long time ago, which they should also know. I’m not going.

I wash my cup, shower, have breakfast, but the invitation doesn’t leave my mind for a second. What about my belief that some small thing will definitely change my life one day? I know. I’ll go, and if I find a group, I’ll turn back. I never liked being part of a group. If the atmosphere suits me, I’ll stay.

I turn on the GPS, and to my surprise, Sunset Boulevard really exists in this forgotten place, and it’s just 15 minutes away. I arrive at 15:01:38. I get out of the car and see a gaunt man, with sunken eyes, pale, formally dressed in a worn-out, steamed suit with a tie and a faded leather briefcase. He looks generally scared. We immediately notice each other, and since we are the only ones around, we approach each other. A black, souped-up jeep cuts across our path, and out jumps a show-off in black: t-shirt, leather jacket, jeans, sneakers, and obligatory branded black sunglasses. I say “show-off” because his body looked like that of a small coward, and his face like a scared mama’s boy. I've always been a good profiler.

He jumps out of the jeep like a fury and barges between the two of us natives, immediately asserting his superiority. Without greeting, he asks, "What time is it?" The bureaucrat answers with a question: “Are you here because of the invitation too?” "I asked: what time is it?" I have this issue that when someone asks me something, I have to respond, so I said, “Take it easy. Don’t worry. It’s only 15:05:01.” "Okay, so, which one of you two sent this idiotic invitation?" The mama's boy clearly needs to blame everyone but himself, I notice. The bureaucrat immediately complains, “I got the same thing as you. The stupid postman delivered it late—by a day and two hours—and charged me for the delay. The system is broken.” "Alright, alright, and you?" he asked me as if I’d slept with his wife. “Dandy, I already asked you to calm down,” I glanced at him, “And no, I didn’t send it. I got it too.”

Dandy unwittingly opens up: “I thought my wife was setting me up again, that’s why I came. She loves creating situations like this, to test my loyalty.” Then he laughed crudely and added, “As if it’s that easy to figure out.” The bureaucrat whispered, “I thought the government or some secret organization had finally caught up with me.” “You’re not a criminal, are you?” the mama’s boy asked. “No, no, no. But the system and institutions will get us all in the end.”

I interrupted the chat. “Okay. If none of us sent it, let’s see who did and why.” “Hey, hey, hey!” the mama’s boy jumped. “How do we know it’s a good decision?” “Papers must be respected,” the bureaucrat insisted. “No matter how stupid the invitation sounds, we won’t know unless we go in. I believe we’ll be stopped in the elevator anyway,” I reassured them.

After about a hundred meters, we reached building number 23, its rusted iron door hanging beside a few steps leading up the side. We exchanged a brief glance and continued. The doors opened easily, despite their weight, and we entered a cold space that resembled a warehouse. Behind the door, an elevator. We exchanged glances again, but this time I was the only one smiling because I knew this was the end. The third-and-a-half floor doesn’t exist.

We squeezed into the elevator, and suddenly, a wave of horror washed over me. All the floors were marked as one-and-a-half, including ours. We stood, bodies touching, which I hated, and remained silent. No one pressed a button. After a brief pause, the bureaucrat simultaneously pressed 3 ½ and repeated, “Papers must be respected.” Cautiously, we opened the elevator and stood in front of yet another set of doors, three-and-a-half meters tall. The bureaucrat opened the light iron doors and went in, and we followed.

Inside, there was no one, or at least no one we could see. It was a massive former office space with dusty, abandoned desks. And concrete. Everything was gray with concrete. The windows were cracked, and the gaps were taped over with newspaper pages. In the middle of this enormous room stood a small table with a chessboard and pieces, the only clean thing in the space.

After some wandering around the room, the bureaucrat says: “I suppose we should play this game of chess. ‘You will play a game of chess and find the meaning of life,’ that’s what it says.”

“But how do we play chess with three people? That’s absurd,” I said, and the mama’s boy supported me: “How do we even know the rules for playing with three?”

We pull up three chairs, sit down, and for the next 26 minutes, we remain silent, staring at the board. The bureaucrat breaks the silence: “What if this is some kind of test?”

“But how do I pass it? How do I know which piece to move? What if I make a mistake?!” the mama’s boy exclaimed in panic.

“What if it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, but rather that we move the pieces according to your own rules, freely?” I said aloud.

Triggered by the idea of making a move, the mama’s boy erupted into hysteria: “I can’t do it! I don’t make decisions! My wife makes them, and before that, my mother did! Do you have any idea how awful it is to make love to my wife? I train kickboxing because of her, to have the strength… She’s given me four children, and now she’s so wide down there that I’m sentenced to spend hours trying to satisfy her until she finishes! Idiot. An English language teacher who’s read hundreds of books and understood none. She insults me all day long, but especially loves to do it in front of guests. I’ve never said a word about it, even though I hate her like a pain in the ass, and now I alone am supposed to decide what to do? I don’t care! I won’t do it! I’m leaving this shithole!”

He jumps up and heads for the door, grabbing the handle just as I finished my remark: “Man, you’re living in a prison.” The mama’s boy froze. “What if... What if I’m never going to be free? Maybe this is the chance I’ve been given...”

At that moment, the already-panicked bureaucrat is triggered. The neon lights start flickering, and he runs after them, screaming that they’re watching us, that the mama’s boy shouldn’t have given up, that they’re sending us a signal, that we must play the game! The mama’s boy and I grab him and hold him in a tight embrace to calm him down, and we manage to, as the bureaucrat starts crying. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it anymore... They’re killing me! Whatever I do, it’s never enough. I’m the best worker, I spend the most hours at the job, I’m the most educated, but I’ve never gotten anything I deserved. For 15 years, my male colleagues have been prostituting themselves to other men for a job. Some of them have wives, children, they go to church, but all of them except me give up their dignity for comfort and all get promoted—everyone except me! The company is run by criminals. Criminals! Everything’s falling apart, crumbling. In 30 years, we’ve dropped to the least relevant institution. And they humiliate me, belittle me, treat me like a rag or ignore me like I’m dead. Just because I know the law. Papers, papers, papers! I’ve memorized the laws, statutes, regulations... I write requests, complaints to the management... Nothing. All because I’m righteous and because I speak the truth! They’re killing me...”

By this time, we had dragged him back to the table, and all three of us sat there in silence, again staring at the board. The mama’s boy whispered: “Looks like I’m not the only one in a prison. We have to play the game.”

“It’s no use. Everything’s already decided. They didn’t give us an impossible task for no reason,” the bureaucrat repeated.

“And you?” the mama’s boy looked at me with friendly curiosity.

“When no one wakes you up in the morning, when no one waits for you in the evening, and when you can do whatever you want, what do you call that? Freedom or loneliness?” I muttered under my breath.

“Sorry, what?” the mama’s boy didn’t hear.

“Charles Bukowski,” I replied.

“Oh, so you’re a misanthrope?”

“No, on the contrary. I love people so much that it hurts too much to see what they’ve become. That’s why I don’t want them around me.”

We fell silent again. Staring at the board. No logic.

Right then, strange sounds started reaching us through the ventilation vents. Both of them started panicking again. The bureaucrat was shouting that they had found us, that the government was intimidating us as always, and that the system would eventually destroy us! The mama’s boy was fearfully muttering that his wife had found him, that he would never escape her, and that the monster would finally eat him alive! I tried to calm them down, saying that in the scariest situations, it always turns out that the solution is absurd. "It’s probably just a cat stuck in the ventilation," I told them. I didn’t calm them down.

“Let’s get out of here,” the bureaucrat decided firmly in panic.

“You saw the door can’t be opened,” the mama’s boy tried to stop him.

“No, no, this is an office. There must be a forgotten building plan somewhere, some fire escape instructions...” he continued rambling while rummaging through the empty drawers.

The silence of apathy was shattered by a large stone crashing through the window. The bureaucrat ran toward us! The mama’s boy fell off his chair! I lowered my head onto the chessboard! And in the same second, we knocked over the table together, scattering the pieces across the floor!

“The king has fallen.” / “It’s over.” / “We ruined everything.” / “There’s no turning back.” / “What now?” / “There’s no way out.” / “”Hell is other people.” We’re doomed to be with each other for eternity.” / “And the meaning?” / “Yeah...” / “What is the meaning of life?” / “It’s too late. We’ll never find out.”

The heavy iron door opens, letting in a bright light. As we think about all the stories we’ve heard about entering the light, as we wonder who we were, what the meaning was, why people decided on our departure in such a meaningless way, a silhouette appears, and as it enters the room, it takes shape, as we all think about the end.

A chubby, sweaty man with thick glasses, also dressed in a cobbled-together suit, but with a gold (or maybe not) ring and chain around his neck. He spreads his arms wide and addresses us with great joy: “Oh, you came. Thank you, thank you. Oh, forgive me, let me introduce myself first. I’m the former chess champion of Absurdistan. I give chess lessons. I’ve been leaving flyers in people’s mailboxes for months, but no one ever shows up. Sorry I didn’t come earlier. I just wasn’t expecting anyone. Is it too late to start the first lesson now?”

The three of us look at each other like three lunatics. We lower our eyes to the fallen king and remain standing still.

“The rest is silence,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hamlet?” asked the frozen mama’s boy.

“Yeah.”