He’s Got a Head for Chess

The first thing she notices is that he doesn’t have a face.

The second thing she notices is that he’s playing chess completely wrong. 

She can’t do much about the first thing, but this is a chessboard store, so she can help with the second. He’s put the pawns all over the chessboard, black on black squares, white on white squares, as if the point was to just match colours. 

‘Can I help you?’ she asks, and the collar of his shirt turns up slightly.

‘Yes, please,’ he says, somehow, despite the lack of mouth. So she sits down with him.

She teaches him the rules, and they play a game. And then another, and then she serves a customer in the midst of the third game. His first win is the fourth one, and while they’d been playing in relative silence so far, close to the beginning of the fifth game, he pauses.

‘You know, most people are put off by the fact that I don’t have a face,’ he says.

She stops and thinks about that for a second. They haven’t spoken much, but every time she gave him a tip, he would thank her, soft gratitude ringing in every note of his melodic voice. After she explained the rules, he fully stood up and bowed. Every time he got a piece of hers, he’d apologise, like he didn’t want to be too zealous in victory, but he’d also bounce in his seat, and the genuine joy was so apparent that she could almost feel it reverberating through the store. Brightening up each and every dark, dusty corner of the store she’s been tied to for decades.

‘Better company than I’ve had in years,’ she replies, and something tells her he knows she means it.

Impossibly, she can see just the faintest trace of a smile.