In Miami, this Sunday into a workday tomorrow, tonight, the night begins and a day begins, the night ends and with it another day begins, too — it’s work whichever way you slice it, a fat healthy slab if you’ve got the appetite or maybe slivered for those on a diet to pick at, a little less, no, really, I shouldn’t, no, go ahead, it’s fine every once in a while, who me, I won’t tell…no one notices they missed a turn, or calls them on it or kvetches cheat, you took a hand from the piece, pay attention. Here in this refurbished penthouse, atop an endtable — one of the only elements remaining, that’s original, this and the endtable on which it rests and that table in the other room, too, call it the beginning-table, if you must (once intended for workaday essing, just guessing), witness the sale’s requirements of new terms for new markets, more words for more money down…surfaces having survived the designers with all their samples, the consultants, their budgets: the old chessboard, it’s theirs, once was His. Its pieces now stand without benefit of players or game, not moving mind you, there’s no magic here; they’re just standing. On their own, as it’s said. As if waiting only for a mind with a hand. The board sits, as the pieces stand — all of it exiled, too, from atop that other table set in the diningroom, recliningly roomed on four legs slowly developing, with splinters, knees, furniture that’d been worthwhile antique even back when PopPop was living and unlike him has remained, having been remanded — the checkered chess’ surface unplaying to an empty house, topped with its ranks rowed unmoved — to this matching oak, mirrorhutched slab set firm in its foundations, you like, which are thick shag, wonderful, no, its gaming parquet lately draped with a doily (this touch, the agent’s), the entire unit moved up against the window, new glass, insulated like you wouldn’t believe, how much you’ll save a fortune on bills. Much remodeling is what, and minimal interest (though this she won’t admit, the agent blowing on her fingernails cupped around the phone), no takers and so, no heat: icicles hang from the baseboard, a condo frozen out of time…
History gets around. Everybody knows whose this once was.
