Metaphors Elisabeth Campbell Class of 2019 Alumna The pirate is, of course, a metaphor. (Real pirates do not have cabins composed entirely of chess boards). The girl sitting across from him is dead, but that doesn’t seem to bother her much. She has drunk nearly half the bottle of his gin and is eyeing his rook with the kind of skepticism usually reserved for the living. “It’s not the rook,” remarks the pirate. “Oh, shut up.” He laughs, and the ruby embedded in his eyebrow sparkles in the candlelight. The dead girl would perhaps think him handsome if their relationship were anything but what it was. But she has been in this room too many times, at this chessboard across from him much too often. With a hesitant hand, she moves her knight three spaces diagonally. He responds with a quick motion from his queen. “There’s another way we can do this, you know,” he says. “As you keep reminding me.” She castles and takes another swig from the gin bottle. The dead girl knows the rules for the game. Every evening for ten years, she and the pirate have met in his cabin at midnight, and every night, she has lost. They have alternated the boards, the pieces, the colors. But they have always played for ownership of her soul. Tonight, however, there is a storm.
The sea on which the ship lies rocks the contents of the cabin uneasily. The girl has never been able to place the sea. It seems to stretch in all directions from the deck. For as long as recent memory serves, she has never seen land from the ship. And there has never, ever been a storm. “A soul for a soul,” says the pirate, his eyes focused intently on hers. “All you have to do is give me one in exchange for your own.” For the moment, the board beneath him escapes his notice. The storm rumbles, the ship shifts, and a single pawn slides left. The girl smiles. “I would rather play chess,” she says, and checkmates his king.
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