16/02/2026
The Stalled Game
The board is still there, between us, even though your chair has long been empty. You walked away with the conviction of someone who already knew the outcome—as if the score had been recorded, the winner decided, and the remaining time on my chess clock no longer mattered. To you, the game was over. You closed that chapter, stood up, and let the dust settle over the remaining pieces.
But I am still here.
I am still fixed in the same position, staring at the chaotic arrangement of the pieces, trying to figure out at which move everything began to crumble. Outside, the world keeps turning. People pack up their own boards, resetting their pieces to the starting positions, and beginning new games with new opponents. They move as if letting go of the past is as simple as turning a palm. I watch them move forward, while I am trapped in an endless analysis.
I keep recalculating every possibility, every "what if," and every variation of a move that might have saved us. I feel that if I could just understand it a little better, if I could think a little longer, or if I could turn back time by just one move, the outcome would change. I treat your departure as a solvable puzzle, when in reality, it was a final decision.
The silence in this room feels so loud. Every motionless piece seems to scream my failure. The board remains unchanged. Dust begins to pile up on the king and queen, but I cannot bring myself to clear them away. To me, clearing the board means admitting that you will never return to finish your turn. So, I choose to remain seated here, waiting in the middle of a game that has actually been dead for a long time. I never truly left that moment. I am still caught in the final second before you stood up and walked out the door. You have started a new life, while I remain the guardian of a memory that is already over.