Ficly

Without a Job

We used to play chess. She had a special board, bought by some ex-so and so whose name I have tried hard to forget, with hand carved redwood pieces. Butterflies with over-sized wings for bishops, beetles as staunchly rooks. It probably cost more than a plane trip to South Africa, where he had gone after he left her. Why I know so much about them, or more accurately, him, isn’t a mystery. She fills the apartment with constant chatter, as if her unemployment gave her liberty to share all her thoughts out loud. Yesterday, she came in the door, stating “I want to be an assemblyman,” as if it were the sort of position one needn’t aspire to, and just cocoon up and emerge, morphed from civil engineer to politician. Some days, instead of her dreams, I hear about pre-me her. We used to talk over the structured game, but the board now sits buried under tubes of sunscreen, and old North Face jacket, the sunglasses case full of Smarties, and dozens of other odds and ends. Her mind has wandered since she lost her job.

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