“What the hell?”
Hugo felt his pupils dilate and constrict with uncertainty as they adjusted to the calm green lights overhead. Before him sat an old man in a red velvet lounge chair, complete with ornate gold buttons, glowing unnaturally in the cold twilight around them. In front of the old man was a rather ostentatious gold and white table with a spartan, unimpressive chessboard atop it, clashing awkwardly with the posh furniture. Across from the old man, sat another chair adorned in velvet that looked to Hugo to be every color at once. The whole ensemble floated curiously on top of deep snow at the peak of an infinitely high, flat-topped mountain. The old man glanced up at Hugo expectedly, his eyes betraying worry.
“Dad?” Hugo said.
“Hi son,” Samuel said tiredly, “please sit. We haven’t got much time.
Hugo moved mechanically to his chair and sank into its deep cushions, eying his deceased father with incredulity and faint suspicion.
“Am I dreaming?” Hugo said, feeling his head begin to swirl.
“I’m afraid not,” Samuel shook his head solemnly, “you are dead my boy.”
Hugo watched the old man shift uncomfortably in his chair at those last words. He looked much older than Hugo had remembered. His weathered face was now covered with a thick, white beard, matching his now wispy eyebrows. Samuel was wearing a long crimson robe that appeared to blend seamlessly with his velvet throne.
“Dead?” Hugo gasped.
“Well…” Samuel’s head bobbed from side to side as Hugo remembered he would do when explaining a particularly difficult concept, “not quite anyway, but it’s pretty much a done deal.”
“But…. How?”
Hugo thought he heard thunder in the distance, as the aurora overhead danced a bit more quickly. He sensed he might be asking questions someone or something did not want him to know the answers to. Hugo looked down at the chessboard before him and shot a glance at his father’s worn countenance.
“Am I to play for my life then?”
“That’s the idea boy,” Samuel smiled vacantly.
“Isn’t Death supposed to be doing this,” Hugo’s eyes widened, “you aren’t….”
Samuel boomed a hearty laugh, contrasting starkly with his frail speaking voice.
“No, no,” he waved his hand and looked down, embarrassed, “think of me as a proxy. Death is a busy fellow and can’t be everywhere at once, you know?”
Hugo shook the cobwebs out of his head, startled at how ordinary he found his predicament to be. Looking around, Hugo found it odd that he wasn’t hypothermic. He felt the frigid air brush against his bare arms and face, but it didn’t bother him. Samuel broke Hugo out of his reverie.
“Shall we start?” Samuel said. “You’re white.”
Hugo nodded. He suddenly felt like he was in his teens again. Chess had been a contentious ritual between him and his father for several years before Samuel’s death. Hugo had almost never won.
“What if I don’t…?” Hugo hesitated.
“Then you lose.”
“You mean die?”
“The two are one and the same now,” Samuel said matter-of-factly, fidgeting with his rook.
Hugo drew a deep breath, making his first move.
“I don’t suppose I can get you to throw this one?” Hugo said hopefully.
“It’s…” Samuel coughed nervously, “against the rules.”
“You are already dead,” Hugo said flippantly, “what more can be done.”
“Don’t speak of what you don’t know boy,” Samuel said, making his move.
“Do we have a time limit?”
“You do,” Samuel looked slightly annoyed at the question, “from what I understand you are losing quite a lot of blood.”
Hugo suddenly felt a sharp pain in his side and was startled to find viscous, black blood moving like molasses down his flank. He looked up at his father, panicked.
“It’s okay. You have a little more time here than down there,” Samuel gestured vaguely down the mountain, “try to forget about it.”
“Glad to see you haven’t changed,” Hugo felt a twinge of irritation rising in his voice.
Samuel ignored his son, and urged him to continue. His father had always been an emotionally difficult man, and Hugo was dismayed to find that he appeared to be the same in the afterlife. He remembered lying awake at night for several hours at a time as a child, praying for a sibling to share the burden of his relationship with Samuel.
“It will only get more difficult the more time you let pass,” Samuel offered.
It was as close to an apology as Hugo would get. He watched the board carefully and made his next move, nervously fingering his deep, oozing wound, trying in vain to forget about it. Several minutes passed in silence before Hugo gathered his thoughts again.
“So what is it like then?”
Hugo watched the dazzling green lights above, waiting for another thunderclap to shut him up, but none came.
“What do you mean?” Samuel’s face was serious.
“Being dead,” Hugo felt a thousand questions flood his mind, “what do you do? Have you seen, you know…. God?”
Samuel let out an exasperated grunt, as if the question was phenomenally stupid.
“God?” He began, “I don’t know anything about that. If he exists, I’ve never met him.”
Hugo sighed disappointedly, taking one of his father’s bishops. He felt a rush of excitement, gaining the advantage. Hugo swore he felt his wound close slightly.
“So, what’s the point then?” Hugo tried to break Samuel’s concentration. “What do you do?”
Samuel positioned his rook strategically, endangering one of Hugo’s knights, and grinned as he put his son on the defensive. How can he be playing to win? Hugo thought indignantly. Although they had only been reunited for a short time, Samuel had already begun to annoy his son tremendously.
“The point boy is that there is no point,” Samuel leaned back into his chair as if he was a king overlooking his dominion. “I can’t tell you what happens because I don’t know. Time doesn’t pass like you expect here. It’s… relative.”
Hugo watched his father draw a few deep breaths, the same way he did the night he died. He got up to move over to his father, but Samuel waved him off. Hugo sat down again, shifting weight away from his gash, which had opened again. Samuel worked to catch his breath.
“I have to say, after all these years, I expected for you to have improved,” Samuel said acidly. “You still play like you did as a child. All emotion, no tact.”
A volley of curses rose in Hugo’s throat, but he stopped himself. Just as when he was young, his father played the game heavily with intimidation. He remembered several of their sparring matches ending with him crying in his mother’s arms. This would inevitably be followed by hours of his parents angrily fighting, the chess incidents providing the kindling for their wildfire altercations. Hugo always wondered if Samuel blamed him for their divorce.
Swallowing his pride, Hugo remained silent and carefully considered his next move. Samuel had not dropped his concentration, showing no signs of panic or pleasure. Hugo castled kingside and leaned back to survey the landscape, trying in vain to control his shaking legs, a nervous tick from when he was a boy. Samuel raised his bushy eyebrows in mock surprise. While Samuel considered his next move, Hugo shifted awkwardly and spoke, not able to predict his father’s reaction to his next question.
“Have you seen mom at all?”
Hugo watched as his father’s eyes darted up, momentarily breaking his deep concentration.
“Your mother,” Samuel started, “has not made herself known to me.”
“But you know she died right?” Hugo pushed a step further. “How?”
“You don’t stay married for twenty years without having some sort of connection,” Samuel was coy, “I felt her entrance to this… whatever this is.”
Samuel waved his hands noncommittally to the heavens. Bright white stars had begun to show themselves amongst the vast green and black canvas above. Hugo imagined his mother to be one of the thousands of blinking lights overhead, looking down disapprovingly at their little game.
“Why do you ask?” Samuel said.
“I think I have a right to know her… situation.”
Samuel shrugged.
“That was always your problem,” he said gruffly, “you always thought you were the center of the universe. You don’t have the right to know anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m asking you a simple question and you are making this about you,” Hugo licked his lips impatiently, “for god’s sake she was my mother!”
“And she was my wife,” Samuel regained his composure, “and you took her from me.”
There was his answer. Hugo sat silently in awe as Samuel made his next move.
“Check.”
The word rang fiercely through Hugo’s skull and down to his open wound. He doubled over in pain as if a searing hot knife had been thrust into his side and twisted clumsily. Hugo felt as if he was going to vomit and tried to rise from his chair and fall into the snow, but another jarring bright light and thunderclap echoed from the distance, forcing Hugo back into his seat. He reached to his side and felt the warm, syrupy blood between his fingers.
“How,” he gritted his teeth in pain, “can you say that?”
Samuel said nothing and looked down his nose at his pathetic son, which only enraged Hugo further. He stood up and raised a fist through the pain, preparing to strike his father. Before he could swing, a jolt of electric discharge struck the mountain, shaking the peak and causing Hugo to fall listlessly back into his chair. He hunched over, panting more out of anger than discomfort, trying to regain his composure. He was in check after all.
Hugo fought hard through the painful fog that clouded his mind and emerged with more clarity than he’d had in a while. The chessboard was suddenly ablaze with counter-offensive options. All he had to do was get out of check. Hugo’s hand trembled slightly as he used his knight to clear his king from danger.
“Mistake old man,” Hugo said, leaning in with a crooked smile, “and, just so you know, she left you because she hated you.”
Hugo’s last words seethed from his clenched teeth. He had always thought himself a better, more even-tempered man than his father, but it felt good to see Samuel squirm. They both knew the truth. Now it was all in the open.
Samuel reseated himself awkwardly, posturing like an agitated, coiled viper. Hugo watched his father’s eyes as they dropped crestfallen to the board. A small pang of regret seated itself deeply in Hugo’s core, temporarily washed away in his moment of triumph.
His father did not speak, instead making a clumsy move and cursing himself after surveying the damage. Hugo almost opened his mouth, but then remembered all the times Samuel had belittled him as a child, and renewed his vigor to win the match. It took almost all of his strength to remember that this game was for more than proving dominance over Samuel.
What followed were a series of moves, each turn bringing Hugo closer and closer to victory. He took Samuel’s other bishop and both rooks, culminating in a blitz play for his father’s queen, while sacrificing only one of his own knights. Samuel attempted to rally a few times but could only muster a few time-dilating tactics to stave off the eventual killing blow. Hugo felt a sick satisfaction at every exasperated grunt he would elicit from his father, rubbing in every powerful move with unbroken, intense eye contact. To his credit, Samuel did not look away, but continued to radiate his own casual disappointment in his son, stoking the flames of Hugo’s offensive prowess.
After a short time more, the final move was upon them. Hugo grinned maniacally at his father, reaching to move his trusty knight to deliver a coup de grace. Before he could make the move, Samuel reached up and gripped Hugo’s hand so tightly that it began to grow pale, and then purple. Hugo’s eyes shot up to meet Samuel’s. What do you think you’re doing? Hugo spat at Samuel implicitly.
“If you make that move, you’ll win and you’ll never see me again.”
Hugo eyed his father contemptuously. And? He gestured without speaking.
“I can’t let you do this without making a few things clear.” Samuel let go of his son’s hand.
Hugo clicked his tongue and rubbed his mouth in frustration with his now free hand.
“Okay…”
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Samuel offered unapologetically.
Hugo rolled his eyes hard and lifted his hand to make his final move.
“Wait!” Samuel roared, stopping Hugo before he could touch his piece. “Just wait. This isn’t easy for me.”
Hugo was now more confused than ever. He stayed silent, waiting for his father to fill the void. Samuel croaked and cleared his throat.
“You are a pain in the ass,” He started again, “But so am I.”
Hugo’s eyebrows rose.
“I know what kind of father I was, and I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Dad I don’t have time for this…”
Hugo stopped as his father cut him off.
“I can’t justify everything I’ve done to you, and I don’t intend to. That business with your mother…” Samuel inhaled deeply, swallowing a lump in his throat, “wasn’t your fault. I’m not so blind, but you can’t tell me it didn’t light a fire under your ass.”
Hugo suddenly realized what had happened and cursed himself for not seeing it sooner, blindly assuming his father had been tormenting him without purpose, as always. A spike of remorse lifted itself through the rapidly dissipating animosity he felt for his father.
“Regardless of how you feel about me, I know you. I know you better than you know yourself, and I’ve had thirteen years to study you and learn about you from here,” Samuel closed his eyes, “everything I’ve done has made you into the man you are now… and you’re doing well enough.”
Hugo tried to speak through his surprise.
“Dad…”
“Good luck, my son.”
Before Hugo could speak again, Samuel grabbed his son’s knight and moved it into position. All at once the mountain began to shake and the swirling green lights overhead now became blooms of intense red, each exploding in rhythm with the thunderclaps, which were now closer than ever. The furniture that adorned the peak glowed white hot, and the chessboard and table disintegrated before Hugo and his father’s eyes. Hugo’s now colorless chair grew stiff and uncomfortable, but he could not gather enough strength to move away from it.
“What’d you do that for you crazy bastard!?” Hugo yelled over the deafening drone around them.
“It was time!” Samuel pointed at his son’s side.
Hugo looked down and saw blood running down his leg with force. He looked back up at Samuel, fear in his eyes.
“Am I going to die!?” Hugo couldn’t hear his own voice over the thunder and quaking earth.
Samuel shook his head, “I’m gonna need you to stay with me!”
“What?”
Hugo could no longer dissect his senses. Pain, fear, anger, sorrow, vibrations, nausea, and deafening noise descended upon him. Only his father’s voice cut through.
“I’m gonna need you to stay with me!” Samuel yelled again.
Before Hugo could speak again, the lightning, which had been drawing ever closer, finally struck the peak. The rumbling stopped all at once and Hugo fell off the side of the mountain, riding a warm wind down to the ground below. As he was about to hit, the earth beneath him gave way, cascading into an unfathomably bright, retina-searing light. When he emerged on the other side, several men and women towered over him, chattering unintelligibly save for one frenzied utterance:
“Clear!”
Sherveen Parivash is an MS1 who is interested in pursuing a career in academic neuroradiology.
