In the shadow of the statue of the woman at the well

He always played chess in the shadow of the statue of the woman at the well next to the glow of the coal pot-belly, and it was sound preparation even though he was unaware of it, especially on rainy blustery winter weekend days. He had been playing this game for a long time (ten years?), but he was amateur and it was only pastime. His opponent was his equal in experience, and the competition,friendly. "All good turns", and all that… Unknowing, there were undercurrents of coded signals in every move though, and coded patterns in every win and loss. These moves built the patterns, and all these were indelibly stamped, permanently key punched, and could never, ever be sorted out of order. Predestination, they were specific and could definitely not be altered. They were fixed, but... He even dreamed in “chess”, and every, even most mundane daily “move” - and that could be anything; crossing the street, say, or buying a coffee and a newspaper - was subconsciously anticipated with consideration to all resulting subsequent counters, blocks and moves. It was automatic, without the slightest thought, hypnotic, remote-viewing programming, heads or tails, black or white, to castle or not, “see a penny, pick it up…” And not unlike many twenty-something’s in the early 1990’s, he had a pack-a-day habit that did not seem to cause much harm, that, and caffeine. He went about his life like normal; work, bar, chess.

         It was only when the ciphers aligned to that one and only random combination of moves out of the many hundreds of millions throughout all time, and he thus made that move, that certain switches were activated and others were turned off permanently. All he knew immediately was that he was inside, really inside, the bell tone. The tone was non-directional and menacingly loud, low frequency like a large church bell, more like a gong, and all range of its harmonics filled the room, and the audible was even visually colorful. He could see as though for the first time, reddish maybe, but so outside the range of normal vision – and he was for the first ten seconds or so – inside of it, surrounded by it, as though suspended in an oscillating reverberating orb. He was startled as in an ecstasy and he was quite probably transcended outside his body. Because for those ten seconds, he was carried,caught, and could not remember any of his five w’s, his name least of all - and it did not matter because he was totally and completely aware of everything just the same.

         But ten seconds was all the time needed for the black bishop. The cleric looked up, raised an eyebrow, adjusted his collar and made the sign of the cross, smiled somewhat, and then slipped places with the white knight on the board, while the opposing pawns on both sides were whisper-chanting “ashes, ashes…” But they were not really alive were they, only animate? And what were they going to do? The game had changed, he was set on an entirely new course, the bell tone diminishing, and the statue of the woman at the well nodded acquiescence but did not yet speak – there was no need to hear her voice. She knew all too well what was happening in her shadow in that room next to the glow of the coal pot-belly.