I walk through a familiar garden late this dark night, after my eyes have already closed. The air is pure and clean, rich with the scent of flowers in full bloom. I pause on occasion, as I pass by, to touch the white petals of hibiscus up above me, and to bend to grasp a rose by its stalk, careful to avoid its sharp thorns. But never do I pluck a flower, content instead to imagine this rose in the hand of my beloved as I bend before her, offering her this pure and visual symbol of my love.
As I walk I see, on a bench beside the long and winding garden path, two old men. They are playing chess, the board placed between them, shadows playing across my vision with the swaying of the branches of trees hanging low above them.
I come closer, curious, for I love this game. To see this Noble game of Kings played with such fervour, so late at night! Truly a sight to be seen, experienced. I felt a sense of peace wash over me just knowing that this game was played within the strict boundaries of law, with structure, beginning to an end, checkmate, victory or loss until the King is set again on his rightful Square, reunited with his Queen.
As I come forward to see, delicious sense of anticipation, I see this board has many pieces, too many to count. These chess men move by themselves, twisting past each other, in battle for themselves at the speed of thought, almost. Anticipation becomes a sense of Foreboding. This game is not following the rules of logic, of Physics, of Science. But yet it happens, before my very gaze.
The two old men sit in front, watching the game, carefully, never looking up. With a start I realize the pieces are made of ivory, no, not ivory, but of human bone. Teeth, beautifully carved by a master craftsman, made perhaps for this very moment, glinting in the ivory light of the moon. I look up at the old men, my interest in the game vanishing. One of them is looking at me, and the other continues looking at the board. He begins to smile, and I see he has not any teeth, a desperately dark emptiness where before they had been beautifully white.
His malevolent smile grows wider and wider, and so does the darkness. I start to drown in this darkness, and with my last breath of air I scream, my lungs emptying with a bellow of fear, and I sink into the darkness of great black unreasoning fear.
And I wake again, sweating, even on this cool moonlit night, as I have every night since she left me. And always this fear takes on a form, a reality of its own, something fearful, something to fear, endlessly creative in its manifestation, knowing what it likes, even as it grows stronger with every passing night. I lie awake until dawn, hoping the first rays of light will clear away the cobwebs of this fearful darkness.
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