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Friday, October 17, 2014

Dry Tortuga Rook #FlashFiction

Had some fun writing up two pieces of flash fiction today from a Chess prompt at Flash! Friday. I had a 160 word limit with this one.

Dry Tortuga Rook

Dr. Mudd reminded him that dead ones would be easier, but that’s not what Grünfeld was trying to accomplish. Grünfeld selected the largest of the palmetto bugs from his bowl. He was certain that it had enough brain mass to learn a rook’s simple move set. That’s why he’d scratched the castle onto its elytra with one of the doctor’s old needles.

Grünfeld set the bug on one of the homemade board’s white squares. With his other hand he put a bread crumb near the base of the piece occupying E7. The bugs weren’t as starved as the men in Fort Jefferson, but they would rarely resist the bait. The palmetto bug made his way to the crumb and in doing so knocked over Dr. Mudd’s queen. His nemesis and physician laughed. It was a long way from the self-automated game he dreamed of, but in Grünfeld’s defense this was only his first phase of training the bugs.

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