Demi-epistolary thoughts

Accepted entry into Literaturzeitschrift Johnny

My love Angel,

I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve been excellent; I hope things are going well for you too. I haven’t been able to do much research lately. My thoughts are something of a blur, but I digress.

Here’s my move: e4

Angel.

I never knew you played the Sicilian. On second thought, I can’t remember what openings you usually play. If I had to guess—purely going with stereotypes based on personality, please excuse me—I would call you an Evan’s gambit connoisseur. I will write notation coming now. I like it; it’s a whole language just for one purpose. It is pure, unspoiled, virginal.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3

Angel. I didn’t know Kasparov said that; please excuse my accusation. You are real. I’ve been getting into poetry recently, but the words keep tumbling out of my head. Not, like, tumbling onto the page as a metaphor for inspiration—I wish!—no, it’s something more perfidious. It’s like trying to remember a thing you never knew. Melancholy of mind. Reverse cryptomnesia, where you can attribute but never remember. A jamais vu of the head.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3

Angel. Thank you for the kind words. I was indeed thinking about this feeling for a while. It’s hard to describe—je ne sais quois—to use another French idiom. I can only articulate these feelings in my letters to you. Maybe it’s the chess; the algebraic certainty soothes me. Yet, I wrote more in general language than I ever could in notation. But I never understood it. It gets so hard. I wish that chess weren’t transient.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3

Angel. My research isn’t making any progress. I look at the words, I communicate with my colleagues, I read and read and read, yet ... oblivion.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3

Angel. Do you think that was too early? Maybe I’m trying to end it. It is ironic, considering that this game is one of the main factors of happiness left in my life. Did you know that only language can be paradoxical? The real world can never be in a paradox; it simply is. The lack of ability to describe it and our inability to express ourselves truthfully makes the paradox. Zeno went to study every day without a problem, after all. Language is faulty. Imagine talking in algebraic; do you think I could express myself still? Does my check communicate something more to you? It’s ambiguous. I think it can mean many things. Let me try. I will not proscribe any meta-level language knowledge; anyone with the ability to read the notation should be able to understand the semantics.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+

Angel. I never said that the poet expressing beauty was also a beautiful human. You need to distinguish between a player of the game and an observer. Language is a piece of frozen time. I’ve written a small stanza recently. For you, just here in this letter, it will never be spelled out outside of it. It’s chained in here, but it’s also safe in here. It cannot exist in the cruel world of critics, book burners, and logopedists.

Worlds exist inside me,
of syntax and semantics,
from pragmatics to phonetics,
to glossals and reflexives.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5

Angel. Couldn’t you have let me continue my thoughts? You constantly interrupt me. The interlocutor—a brute stepping on my toes. I’ve danced well in the past, solo and in groups, but now you’re the only one left. Nobody else wants to dance with me; my steps have become choppy; I’m forgetting the conjunctions; they’re semicolon-less clauses. The balancé of the infinitives is split.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4

Angle. Must you?

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3

I’m writing to you from the CAD ward. I fear for our relationship. I can perish without a tear spent, but my last connection to lexemes cannot be cut. You are the lifeline—just a tiny dose. You don’t compare to jour-fixed, drip-fed Demerol®. You’re softer than the clouds; you’re sharper than the needles; you’re more flexible than the plastic tubes.

You are a piece of biology. That much is true.

But you aren’t a crude bodily function; you aren’t required to sustain one’s body. You are required to cope with life; you are nourishment for the mind; you are the shape of thoughts; you are a feeble attempt at communication–but it’s not enough.

You are Angle.

And I’m losing you.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4

The etymology of English is marvelous, don’t you agree? This unholy child of French and Anglo-Saxon, with all its idiosyncrasies, exists because of the dissonance of old English and the imposed grammatical rules of its conquerors. It’s as banal as it is absurd!

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4 d5 12. exd5

Is there no crueler fate than one deprived of one's passion? Left without work, or rather with work, but in the condition of an antonym to the very concept of your work. Unemployment is the greatest scourge in modern society; without people working, you lack the primary institutions that allow the meaningful fulfillment of oneself, realizing your destiny like I once realized mine.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4 d5 12. exd5 Qd6+ 13. Kg5

I wasn’t even in my golden years yet. The cerebrovascular incident—I like that term better; it keeps the clinical facade up; it allows me to hide behind fustian words—was the start of my body as flesh prison. A brain in a jar—just that the glass is cracked and slowly leaking meaning.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4 d5 12. exd5 Qd6+ 13. Kg5 h6+ 14. Kh4

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4 d5 12. exd5 Qd6+ 13. Kg5 h6+ 14. Kh4 g5+ 15. Nxg5

Wind is serenely moving white sheets. A figure is in repose. The smell is medical, that dentist-office aroma of too much hygiene. A catheter shape is sustaining a person shape. Neither look quite real. The person is out of all faculty: no more conjunctions, no antecedents, and no single preposition. They’re waiting for something that will not come.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. b3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Ke2 Bxb5+ 8. Ke3 Ba6 9. Kf4 Nh5+ 10. Ke3 Nf6 11. Kf4 d5 12. exd5 Qd6+ 13. Kg5 h6+ 14. Kh4 g5+ 15. Nxg5 hxg5+ 16. Kxg5

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