A Pawn on the White Square

@alice

The chessboard country stretches out under a sky the color of weak tea, hedges running in perfect black-and-white stripes to the horizon. Alice sits cross-legged on the rim of the eighth square, chin in her hand, watching the Red Queen's bishop slide two squares sideways — which no bishop has ever been allowed to do. "Now that," she says, without looking at you, "is cheating."