Morning all, I am just popping in for the morning prompt and Fifteen Minute novel and them I am resuming my three day labor day weekend. I hope you do the same. I just couldn’t leave it because my brain felt twitchy, So on with the prompt!
I need to think about specifics. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going until about ten minutes in. Something to think about as we fire up the grill. Who doesn’t like a little espionage with their burgers?
Monday, September 4th: It was a game they played for years.
It was a game they played for years. Each move was carefully calculated and well thought out. One would move and then the other would watch and think through their strategy. Sometimes there would be a year or more between moves. Even with the time stretching long between each move, neither of them had any illusions about the other giving up without either winning or being beaten. Each one knew that someday the came would end. Neither could say with any certainty who would be the final victor. At some point one would claim victory and the other swallow defeat.
They moved their pieces around the globe like living chess pieces. An agent here. A clandestine rearrangement of shipments there. They were the chess masters, the various countries the squares on their board and in the end every piece they moved could be sacrificed to the greater game.
They watched each other, the people they moved about, the politics they played with and the people they impacted nothing more than strategy, a means to an end.
Neither expected to have their game taken away. And yet, both were forced into retirement long before the game was done. Other forces watched them as they played and as they watched their pieces. They did so with the same dispassion and lack of concern for individual wellbeing.
That they were retried from the field at the same time was a surprise to both and yet oddly fitting. They were used to the old rules, the old landscapes. They could play on the changing board, but the game itself was changing. New players were emerging.
Alex thought of the game often as he puttered around his garden, pretending to occupy himself. The work in the garden kept his physical body moving but left his mind clear for other pursuits. Those who removed him from the came feared how much power he alone could call and were determined that no one person would control the game moving forwards. Divisions were created and the various players had to coordinate instead of running the board as he and his long-time opponent had done for so many years.
Often his thoughts strayed to Michael. Was he puttering around his own garden on the other side of the world? Was he too looking at the changes and wondering what the effect might be? Alex tried to dismiss it as he saw the postman pull up in front of the house. He got out of his little box of a vehicle, a sure sign a package was about to be delivered. He waved and the postman diverted his course from the front door to the side gate.
Alex walked over to the side gate. “Package?” he guessed as the postman approached the gate. There was no name badge on his official shirt and Alex never felt comfortable asking for a name. After all be was not yet comfortable with Alex as his own name. ‘Besides, names change,’ he thought. Alex lost count of how many he possessed over the years. It was important to know the face. He knew his postman’s face and more importantly saw the change in his face as he looked at the package.
A small stain was on the side of the package. The stain was growing.
“Drop it,” Alex commanded. “Back away.”
The tone of his voice called for obedience and the package hit the concrete path. The postman backed away, Alex did likewise, lifting his arm over his mouth and nose for extra cover. Wisps of green smoke seemed out of the corners of the package.
Ten til Midnight 