Incompleted Stories

The Games

Everything Stays

The glare of his glasses shifted into my eyes as he tucked his head up, grinning. His finger rested upon his forward-most checker piece and three quick clicks told me he had just triple jumped, in and out of a king's position. The awaiting onlookers gawked and gaped and I smiled crookedly. I selected a corner unit and, in one swift instant, my opponent and I locked eyes. He had seen his mistake. He had noticed my trap.

Quick and decisive, I launch a fierce offensive in which I make a septuple jump. With seven of his checker pieces gone in one stroke, his lines scattered, it was a simple effort to use my King to round up all of his units, with the pressure of my regulars. The spectators didn't cheer, nor did they say anything demeaning. They were awestruck by the maneuver.

In a quick moment we stood up, shook hands, walked away from the checkerboard. As the next match started, the teacher shouted across the classroom, "Indoor Recess ends in fifteen minutes!" We sat down in the corner, starting to make paper planes, when, simultaneously, we bolted upright to come face-to-face with a desk and a checkerboard on it.

"I challenge you two," the girl spoke defiantly.

My friend laughed. "A girl? You can't beat us at checkers... and besides, I don't want your cooties on the checker pieces."

She rolled her eyes and glanced at me. Being more diplomatic than my companion I nodded silently and she sat down. As we began to play, I noticed something. Slowly, ever-so-slowly, this would result in my making the death move. I smiled, no worries. I set up a similar trap, but as the bait was about to go out, she moved a separate piece in the way. Frowning slightly, I jumped it. That was my mistake.

If I had jumped with the other piece, I'd have been safe. But this one resulted in a double jump, following a breach in my right-corner kingship space. I hasted to king a unit, but that resulted in me being pinned in the corner. My friend, who had been ignoring the whole of it up to that point, suddenly found interest and glanced at the board.

I wasn't sweating, as I didn't take it that seriously, but my heart was thumping faster than wheels turn on a car. Each move resulted in death. I tried to lure her away, but instead of taking the bait she simply moved a checker piece in the way to prevent me from jumping her.

I gnawed repeatedly on the top of my index finger, thinking. Curious, I stretched out my diamond-formation of checkers, but I knew that the king from the rear-

-And the king from the rear annihilated the remnants of my checkers.

My friend, now fully determined to fight this girl who had beaten me, challenged her. She simply smiled, and as she packed up, her long brown hair gliding down to her upper back, she smiled. "But I've given my pieces cooties." Both she and I laughed as my friend went red in the face and I helped pick up my pieces. As I slid them in with the checkerboard, I mentioned off-handedly, "I'm Will."

"I'm Lauren." We shared a smile as the teacher announced that Indoor Recess was over in ten minutes. The girl had beaten me in less than five minutes.

"The bell will ring soon, Study Hall's nearly over, so we might as well clean up," I note as I swiped chess pieces into a small linen bag and loaded it into the chess box.

As we swung our backpacks on, the sounding of the bell resounded throughout the hallways and echoed in the classrooms. As if holding some magical effect on the students, they stampeded through the halls in a flurry, some stopping at their lockers to chat, most just messing with each other with a little shove and laugh as the entirety of the school pushed itself from the inside out to get to the next class.