THE LITTLE PAWN

There was once a little pawn who played in the biggest game of all; that of Chess. He started as the pawn of two little boys who played each other frequently. The boys won and lost with that pawn, but he was always the first to be wiped off of the battlefield of the board. Then he became the pawn of a chess club, and still the players used him as mere foot soldier, cannon fodder for stronger pieces and players in the game. He slogged it out in the trenches and the frontline of Chess, and never tasted the glory of a victorious King or Queen. Whatever the outcome of a game was, win or lose, he was always the last in the player’s minds, and the first piece back in the box, while the game continued in all its glory and triumph. He was an insignificant pawn, destined to be used and discarded forever, while the laurels went to the royal pieces and players. Until one day when a great player took him out of his box, and arranged him on his frontline position. He could feel that this man was different from all the players that he had played for before. The man seemed to play as if he had only one piece in his mind; the tiny pawn himself. The opening was tense, and then the bloody battle raged on the board, with foot soldiers falling this way and that, and even the knights and bishops getting slain in glorious battle. Still the man’s focus was only on the pawn, as the great player guided him through each move and each step. Every square, a square closer to royalty, and ultimate victory. The man played out of principle and class, the man played with passion. And at the last moves, he moved the pawn into a Queen position in the back row, ready for the ‘cue de grace’ on his formidable opponent. The pawn had become royalty at last, and the last move of ‘Checkmate’ was easy, at the hands of a master. All his years in the trenches had paid off at last, and he had tasted victory as the Victor. Every pawn is a King in the making.