Chess-Man: Misery-is-Hope {Kitchen}

A Story by Abishai100

A inventive 'take' on Victor Hugo's work about hope-drawn from misery, a tale of 'basic' human excellence (and chess-miracles!).

I wanted a fresh/inventive take on the classic Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) for the November-Thanksgiving month/experience for WritersCafe, most likely to retire with, since Hugo's one of my favorite classic writers. This inventive take invokes use of set-oriented placements of plot/conditions and utilizes random sketches/drawings I found on the Internet which contribute to the overall 'aura' of feeling of the experience of the main 'theme' of the Hugo-novel --- one of human vision of simplified/desperate living courage/patience/faith.

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DISCLAIMER: The drawings/sketches used don't represent any view of the artist(s) and are therefore only 'referenced' as imagery-settings/backgrounds for this work of personal/private adaptation and are not intended for commercial re-presentation as intentional orientations of what the artist(s) originally envisioned/expressed.

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NOTE: The storyline for this adaptation was inspired by a real-life 'account' of a college-friend who claimed he had a similar experience/ordeal requiring the sort of 'valor' that reminds us of the timelessness of the Hugo-story, which touched me personally!

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A small and miserable family lived in a rather modest wood-house in the countryside of New England, and it was composed of a mad/insane father and his wife and young son Damian. The father would create insane fits of fury not directed at anyone in particular with only the intention of creating panic in the household, frightening the mother/son into feeling like prisoners or witnesses of the blind and inexplicable insanity. The father's only explicit message regarding his direction-of-wrath concerned his intention to 'destroy' any lovely girl the boy/son would bring into their miserable home as a vestige of hope for romance/friendship --- no girlfriend was therefore conceivable in this miserable and arguably doomed home. However, this horrifying story has an unfolding miracle.

FATHER: Don't even dream I'm like Adolf Hitler or someone the police/army will sweep-in to rescue you two, or Damian.

MOTHER: Please, dear, consider the weight/tone of your madness and allow us to simply sit and wait for you to calm down.

SON (Damian): I won't bring any girl into this house, father, I promise...but please stop this crazy thing you do with us!

FATHER: I will do what I need to do, for the good of this private home; my madness is my private dominion and you're inside.

MOTHER: Don't fear, son, we'll all calm down...very very soon.

Damian found a potential or sliver of hope to get out of this hellmouth of fear and madness in the home he shared with his worried and unnerved mother (Eliza). They endured this pattern of blind insanity for about 3 years before Damian came up with a 'vision' of hope borne out of pure misery, and it concerned the 'private' miracle(s) of chessplay. Damian spent countless hours hiding in his attic while his father slept and playing chess with himself on a board his mother bought him, and he used the chess-set board to imagine defying/challenging all sorts of 'evil' adversaries, and it made him quite 'psychic' and imaginative in the use of chess-piece orientations/arrays to create pure genius for offense-defense balance(s) in chess...especially stalemate-chess, a unique condition of gameplay involving a perfect parallel or tie/draw or no-win decision symbolizing pure calm/peace!

DAMIAN: I've earned a special chess-wizard 'academic' scholarship to the Ivy-League, mother to develop computation-skills!

ELIZA (Mother): Oh, that's so excellent, my darling-genius son (Damian); go forth and bring out the darkness from our home.

DAMIAN: That's just what I'll do --- and I'll write home to you every month to keep you updated on my progress/education!

MOTHER: Excellence, son.

Damian became such a chess-wizard in his college and gained such laurel(s) that he became known as a 'master' of stalemate-design(s) and diagrams and even invented a way to create perfect stalemate-programs (imaginary computations) between hypothetical A.I. computer-chess 'minds' or brains and it earned him much world-travel opportunities, which sent him (and his mother Eliza!) to Paris where he met his future-wife (Danica). This was the miracle, and he used the laurels and funds/grants and new teaching-position to stay in France with his mother, marry Danica, and leave his father forever (for achieved 'true' hopes).

FATHER: I shall die alone in New England and be buried by my own spirit(s) in this cemetery by the townsfolk, abandoned!

DAMIAN (Diary): I'd imagine father was buried by the townsfolk; whilst mother (Eliza) and I remain in France with Danica.

MOTHER (Eliza): The burial of my husband with the hand-of-God that came with Damian's miracle chess-wizardry is human.

Danica, an artist in Paris, sketched for Damian/Eliza a special sci-fi media drawn alien 'dragon' representing the adversarial color(s) of Hell and fear, and they mounted it in their new Paris residence where they'd cast the 'dragon' imagery as a haunting reminder of the maelstrom of 'intelligence' that brought Damian/Eliza out of that mad-anger house of Purgatory in that New England home of misery from which Damian found that genius-method of using chess/art to escape...and find real spiritual excellence (ha)!