Narrated by Zhanxi
Some time ago, there existed gods of some sort.
Unfortunately, I cannot say exactly what sort because that knowledge is very much beyond and unknown to me.
What I do know, however, is that the almighties were lonely in their being, and so, as a sort of experimental companionship endeavor, they made a beautiful baby girl, and gave the baby girl to a human family on Earth to raise while they watched from afar.
And the girl possessed all the traits she imagined would be admired in the world.
The gods made the girl petite, innocent, and rather enchantingly beautiful.
As the baby grew into a little girl, the girl was noticed everywhere she went. And it wasn’t because she was just beautiful to look at. No, there were many other beautiful girls in the world. It was because she was happy, and optimistic, smart, and mostly innocent. And that her personhood defaulted to caring for others, including caring for exotic plants and animals in her free time.
In her early youth, she lived a mostly good life. Learning to dance, draw, speak, play chess and really, anything less the god fancied teaching her. As the gods watched from afar, they were extremely satisfied.
In fact, one of the gods’ favorite pastimes became nudging Fate to present the girl with little challenges in the world and preparing her to play tricks on humans she would ‘accidentally’ meet. The gods’ liked using the girl to keep mortals in check.
Let me see if I can explain this satisfactorily.
For example, one time there lived a chess master whom none could defeat. He played victory after victory, crushing his opponents in a ruthless manner, some in which the loser would go away shaking and with terrible terrible emotional trauma, some even swore to never pick up a rook or queen again after playing him, which was a terrible nuisance. Chess should be emotional, yes, but also fun! Don’t you agree? And not so serious.
Anyhow, around the same time, the girl found a box of old chess pieces and board in her human parents attic and became fascinated with the way they looked and felt.
She played against school friends, joined the team, and kept playing. For some reason, she got hooked to the play and the way chess made her feel. She was, in essence, good at it.
Anyhow, as the chess master grew in skills, confidence and well, let’s just say a sort of bravado, the gods became more and more irritated by his mannerisms and style of sort of talking down to others and feeling extremely undefeated. Finally, he bragged that no one, not even the gods could defeat him. So naturally, the gods had to teach him a lesson.
The gods, in essence, taught the girl to play extremely good chess. Having a naturally curious mind, this would not be too difficult for her. After graduating from high school, she would hop online to hone her skills, and play against a variety of players with different styles from all over the world. And her chess.com profile picture would be that of an innocent lily. Pretty, but mostly unassuming. Over the next two years, she played game after game, with apt analysis and plenty of help from Fate and the gods.
Anyhow, eventually she would end up playing rather well against her ‘final opponent’ (but not overly well) online, the chess master I mean, and with a few memorable strategies and moves, she would be qualified for an in person chess tournament that would have her at the bottom of the bracket. Did I mention that this tournament was super hyped and the chess master was favored to win? Yes, this happened to be the same tournament that the chess master was playing in, a place for him to do victory laps and show off all of his expertise and moves on the board while the other chess players worshipped him from the sidelines.
Anyhow, staying on the periphery of play and wearing extremely unassuming clothes (neutral colors), away from the doomed chess master, she defeated one opponent after another, with tactical insights illuminated by the gods. And as one after another opponent tipped their king to her, slowly, the chess master began to feel a sort of a wave of bad juju overcoming him. This feeling he brushed aside and continued to embarrass his opponent in the most ludicrous of ways.
When she sat down to play the chess master, after a few moves, he recognized the white lily that was the profile picture of this opponent, and had assumed a rather effeminate man who played him as opposed to a young girl? who would be playing him. He really didn’t think anything of it as it was he who had a good three to four hundred rating points on her. As he had spent most of his life examining the chess board and not socializing, he did not understand why he was feeling so exceedingly distracted. The girl was pretty, he admitted, but nothing like the bodies of the women he watched in his.. free time, and definitely not too much to his tastes and liking.
Even though he had about three to four hundred rating points on her, he didn’t know why he could not get past her defenses. As they traded pieces and as she gained pawn after knight after bishop on him, he started to sweat. What was going on?
Eventually, the chess master would become thoroughly enchanted by her unassuming beauty, and intelligence, and go on to lose exceedingly badly. Very embarrassing for a seasoned chess master who was slated to win — to lose.. to a girl who was at the bottom of the bracket. Even the tricks he had foreseen in her online play would be impossible to overcome on the live board as he sat with his mind extremely mushy and jumbled.
In the end, she completely eviscerated him. And later, when he tipped his king in sportsmanship, she would walk away with a nice boost to her rating.
The renowned chess master, unable to live with this hearty embarrassment, gave up play altogether for the next four years, as that was the extent of the punishment dealt to him by the gods.
Not everything is about the chess board, they thought to him, and taunting the gods is certainly not a good way to go in a mortal land that belonged to the gods.
Anyhow, both Fate and god enjoyed watching and teaching the very mortal chess master this lesson.
So as you can see, the girl was a bit of fun to have around, and the gods had uses for her now and then.
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Thanks for reading. Let me know about your thoughts, intrigues, questions, and suggestions — Love, Zhanxi
