TWTT #01 - The Discovery of Chess
Ah, where to begin with my stories... So many options... Oh, I have one! Today's story will be about my discovery of chess. A fitting choice, considering I am posting on a chess website, after all. Now, where shall I start...
Once during my travels in a park, I discovered two humans sitting at a board with a bunch of weird looking shapes on it. I immediately became intrigued. I jumped up on a nearby table to examine and watch. The way they moved these weirdly shaped figures was so strange to me at the time. I watched as less pieces remained on the board, and until what I now know was a checkmate.
"Checkmate," the taller one had said. (I'd like to add, I didn't understand this at the time, as I hadn't known much of English language yet.)
The two of them set up the board again, back to its starting position. It was upon seeing that starting position, in that moment I knew, I wanted to learn more about this activity. I watched, analyzing the way they moved every piece and each "check" and "checkmate". Soon, I understood how each piece was to move, by just simply watching and observing.
After watching many games over multiple hours, they had started to pack up the board. It was then I realized it had gotten a bit late. The shorter one of the two (I didn't pay much attention to their appearances, I only noticed their significant height difference) took the board with him as he left.
I don't know what came over me here, but I decided to follow him. Walking through the city behind him, he stopped at an apartment building. I meowed at him, trying to get his attention. I'm not one to enjoy the life of a house cat, but I had to know more about this strange activity. The human heard me and turned around.
He made some noise I didn't understand, and bent down to pet me. He got up, and let me into his apartment with him. I assume he had been used to caring for stray cats for a while now, as I noticed a fluffy looking bed next to a food and water bowl first thing upon entering. I walked over to the bed and decided to rest there.
I watched as he set his foldable board down onto a table, and went into the kitchen across from this living area. He grabbed a bag and poured some food into the bowl for me.
I happened to be quite hungry at the time, and the hunger overcame comfort. As I ate away, I heard some flipping pages of a book. I looked over to see the human sitting on a couch, reading. He opened up his board, set the pieces up in a specific way, and examined it.
Interested in this, I jumped up onto the table next to the board. He didn't seem to mind my presence, and continued examining. I took a glance at the book. I saw the same position on a page. It was at this moment I decided to work on understanding English language. I wanted to know all about this, and be able to understand the book. (Maybe I'll write about learning English soon...)
I stuck around with this human for a while, watching as he would set up his board and occasionally have other humans over to play against him. I picked up a couple of terms during this time, like "check", "checkmate", and the phrase "good game". I had also managed to learn the name of this activity, Chess.
After a month or so, I decided to finally leave. I hadn't been learning anything new, and I had a new mission. I still think about this human from time to time, though. Maybe one day I'll go see if he still lives there and pay him a visit. I have him to thank for sparking my journey to the chess.com forums.
Anyway, that was the story of how I discovered chess. Apologies if the writing in this isn't the best yet, I'm still learning about how to write stories haha. Thanks for taking time to read, though! Feel free to check out any other stories I may have published, if any.
I hope you enjoyed, though! Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
