Les Mouches Fantastiques (amateur journal)/March 1920/Suicide

They told me that I must play at chess with God, for all men play that game with Him. They brought me before Him in a mighty house where all was silence save for the ticking of an enormous clock that marked the rise and fall of centuries. And when the dull red and black beard was laid across our knees, and He moved His pawn a square, I heard a woman’s scream, and saw, when I moved it to play, that my hand was the hand of a child. I looked on the Face, and saw nothing, only emptiness, with a faint gleaming deep in the void.

And the clock ticked monotonously, repeating through infinite corridors.

Again He moved, and it was a queen He shifted, and when I moved my knight, I saw that my hand was the hand of a man. But my moves were always false, and one by one I lost my men.

The clock ticked ceaselessly, monotonously, and the echo came faintly from the infinite length of corridors.

The game went on interminably; He won continually. I felt the weight of time bend on my spirit as my hands waved feebly about the board, I looked again at the Face, and found it blank as before, save for the cruel glimmering in the emptiness. His hand shifted quickly, and the fingers were thin, with ridges at the joints.

Tick! The clock sounded interminably. By and by, I heard nothing but the horrible ticking of that clock. I would not move my hands to play, I wanted to stop the game. Only His implacable hand came came out relentlessly, monotonously, like the ticking of the clock in its insistence.

Suddenly, I kicked violently, and upset the board with its fantastic array of men in God’s lap.

And I heard the clock no more after that.