Sixty-Four Squares

A three-hop burst carried me up the concrete stool and straight onto the stone tabletop. Boom: an eight-by-eight chess grid etched right into the polished surface. Sixty-four alternating black and white squares. Pure geometric perfection. I locked onto the diagonal lane. Hop, pivot, stick! My base smacked onto the dark squares with a crisp, hollow clack. Black, black, black—strict bishop trajectory. At square four, a brown winged maple seed blocked my lane. Zero hesitation. Full vertical launch, a tight three-sixty flip in mid-air over the stem, and four-corner impact dead-center on square seven. Route cleared. Board conquered.