The Fourth of the Ninth

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NOTE: No sex in this. Some of my writing is just, well, good writing, for a contest. These are all contest entries. About 1/2 in this book, which you can get at Bookapy really inexpensively, has sex!

The icy cold wind was relentless, the continuous blustery current of air across the frozen lake a constant reminder of their plight.

The older man was mostly motionless, his eyes closed, his mind deep in thought. A second old man watched him, blessed with the patience of Job.

“Rook to Knight Seven.” The old man had opened his eyes, ice particles having formed again in his eyebrows and his beard.

A crunching sound was heard once again, along with a muffled scream,.

“Seem colder to you today?” It was the patient one.

“No. Not really.”

A few minutes later it was the patient one who drew first blood.

“Queen’s bishop takes pawn.”

After making his move, he looked around the lake. Nothing had changed. There were perhaps a thousand souls that he could see, but he suspected that there were plenty more out of his sight. He heard one of the closer ones musing on the Rite of Spring, the ballet by Igor Stravinsky. He knew, just knew, that the mention of Spring would set the other old woman on her discourse of Spring in Germania when she was a young girl.

“You could feel the warmth of the sun, and the birds, oh my, the birds would chirp and tweet so you’d start to think that they were talking with each other.”

He smiled at her reverie. He’d heard it countless times before.

“Knight takes bishop.” There was a pause. Say it, he thought. Check. Just say it.

“Check.”

They both chuckled quietly, humor being one of the most precious of possessions at this stage of their existence.

“Seen anyone new?” He asked his friend this every day, and the answer was almost always the same.

“Not today. Not since him,” indicating the direction with a nod of his head. “He doesn’t say much.”

That comment produced a full guffaw from both of them, looking over and seeing the newcomer’s eyes narrowing with anger, his mouth buried beneath the ice.

The old woman now going on about the picnic.

In unison, they mimicked her, quietly though so as not to alert her to their form of teasing.

“And vee’d take the jam un spread it across thee bread.”

Still smiling, they both then closed their eyes, scrunching hard, trying to melt some of the frozen icy particles that accumulated on their eyeballs, hoping to turn it into some lubricating wetness.

It worked. It mostly always worked.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” It was the patient one. “I heard a new one, earlier, while you were sleeping.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It was from someone afar. It passed through nine of us. It’s long.” He saw the disappointment.

“Don’t worry, we took it slow. We got it right. Trust me.”

“I trust you my friend. It’s just, well, you know, it’s the holy of holies. When we talk ‘Spring’,” at this word, both men bowed their heads, then raised them, “we must always, always be precise.”