Self-Playing Chess is a child's, or eternity's, outlook on here and now.
If you love Terry Gilliam's films, if you like Paulo Coelho's take on life, if you love questions, Self-Playing Chess is your book.
Here we go: "My name is Audrey, I have greying hair and sparkle in the eye. I feel neither young nor old; I feel ancient.
Amongst other rather peculiar possessions of mine, there is a set of a self-playing chess.
Today, I will speak of a friendship, undesirable yet impossible to live without..."
Excerpt:
I have stopped asking questions starting with why as the possibilities and versions of the becauses are limited by the boundaries of my fantasy only. Each of them as true as the next.
I ask whats instead. What is life (instead of why am I here)? What is time (instead of why does it fly so fast)? What is light, and air, and water? What is sound and what defines music? What am I? Am I?
“My name is Audrey, and I am not perfect. I am here to learn that it is ok,” voice determined, gaze not meeting the six-and-a-half pairs of eyes upon me. The six belong to those in my shoes, and the half one – to a fidgety yet mousy male specimen alias caseworker.
Being diagnosed with tumour barely left me in shock - I had sensed its presence long enough and had a decision ready before the verdict was out in the open. We will simply have to make friends.
We are, indeed, childhood buddies. Like siblings born within the same labour, always taking the other one for granted. A unit, one unimaginable without the other.
Ever-present, felt but unacknowledged, he has led me to places of immense beauty, of meaningful depth, of purity, colour and peculiar dimension.
The journey has come for a price, of course, but doesn’t give and take speak of a true partnership?
In fact, these very words might be his doing as well - having slowed me down as much as he has, he could well be using me as a typewriter.
He expressed a wish to have a proper name, Oreus. So be it.
Oreus will remain intact. He has been spotted late, like an older brother or a parent you recognize and make friends with when it is slightly on the late side to enjoy the togetherness.
Yet, it is high time to reflect.