I have a feeling this is a chess game.
Either way, well done!

Oooh, supremely moody. A familiar argument seen from a completely unfamiliar perspective. Love it.

Ah, the life of the lonely rook. Didn’t realize he was such a lush though.

This is an extraordinarily creative effort of re-imagining a game of chess as an office party of sorts. Very cool, and well done. And I think you hit the subtlety of it perfectly.

Fantastic chess metaphor—normally the game itself is used as a metaphor for something else—here it’s the “party” for the game. Love it.

Once I figured out – by reading the comments, silly blonde not checking the tags – that this was about chess, it made so much more sense! It is an excellent use of an extended metaphor.

Yay for you! At the risk of seeming like a big dufus I have to admit that I just improved my vocabulary by one word while reading your story. I thought you’d made a typo with the word affray and thought it should’ve been fray, but my trusty dictionary helped me confirm I’m a big dufus, and made me that little bit of a smaller dufus than I previously was.

This is nice and crafty, with all the symbolism and such. Once I realised it was about chess I was even more impressed.

Thank you extending my education :O)