Series: Dreams # 3

The Chess Dream

Sometimes I think I must be awesome, because I have such a strong set of values and an astute moral conscience; other times I think I'm probably a self-righteous little so-and-so, and if I wasn't me, I probably would have slapped me by now. I mean, I even have a moral conscience in my dreams. Or maybe the sad reality is that the only time I actually take a stand against something wrong is when I'm dreaming.

I had this dream a few months ago where I was sitting down to a game of chess, and I suddenly realised how very, very wrong chess is. It was similar to realising, at about the age of nine, how sexist Disney films are (or were; I watched Tangled at the weekend and thought it was pretty good). I had the board in front of me with my pieces lined up in their places, and I looked at all the cute little pawns and I thought to myself, You poor little munchkins, why have you been placed on the frontline?

Don't ask me the exact rules of chess, because to be honest I find it hard concentrating on anything where you're required to think five moves ahead (what's the point? Waste of good brain cells), but I know that there's a hierarchy which puts the king at the top and the people at the bottom, with some bishops and a few knights thrown in somewhere in the middle, and in my dream, I thought that such rules were absurd. So I sat across from my opponent and refused to play.

"No," I said adamantly. "I am not going to let my people die. You may think, Oh, it's just another pawn, but to me that pawn was a person. It had feelings. And when you kidnapped it and held it hostage, it got scared. I don't care if you line them up neatly and give them a good view looking out of the window - they're not fighting!"

Like I said: self-righteous little so-and-so.

But it's true, when you think about it. Why don't we try to protect the pawns? Why are their lives disposable, and why do we accept the inevitability of their premature death? And why on earth do we equip them with so little power? I mean, only being able to move one space at a time? What kind of army training is that?

Chess isn't the only game lacking a moral conscience; how about Buckaroo, which seems to advocate placing random inanimate objects on a defenceless donkey before it finally gets pissed off and decides to kick the shit out of you. (Admit it: you'd be a bit upset too if someone kept trying to hang a frying pan off your ear.) Or how about Guess Who, which pigeonholes people into ridiculously narrow categories.

"Are you a fatso?"

"Why yes, yes I am."

"Well then you must be Fred!"

Or, worst of all... Monopoly, where the rich get richer and the poor, for some inexplicable reason, keep getting sent to jail without even being given a fair trial - and of course the option to purchase a Get out of jail free card is always well beyond their financial capabilities.

It appears the board game market doesn't cater for the underdogs. I propose a new game: Underdogs, the object of which is to get as poor and as kicked and as fat as possible. In my dreams, perhaps.