Today's #flashfictions #TimeCheckers

“Laughter is the best medicine.”

Hippocrates*

      Today I've been hanging with my friend CJ. We have not been constructing doomsday weapons.

Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Time Checkers

       When Fates played checkers they needed many more pieces than humans. Here, there and when they would place the pieces on a board that extended across a minute's worth of time in a pocket dimension. They would use their powers to move the pieces across the board as it extended through time and lock the pieces in a second of time so they wouldn't move unless the fates force them to. Each piece was allowed to be placed in one of the sixty seconds in the minute of time that existed in the pocket dimension. Pieces moved forward and backward a second in time in the same position on the board unless another piece was in that spot. They could move forward like normal checkers in the second they were in.

       The Fates start out with pieces matching what humans would have in normal checkers but for each second of the minute in the pocket dimension so they have sixty times the pieces in their games. The lose condition is the same, players make moves until the other cannot or surrenders, and the Fates often grind at each other for a very long amount time until this is done. Time has a different feeling for the Fates and stubborness has a new element.

      “Getting frustrated yet Tom?” One lady fate said to the other as he moved one of his king checkers from forty nine seconds to fifty.

       “Just impressed by your cowardice. King dancing? Wanting me to get frustrated enough to quit?” Thomas normally was a polite, traditional gentleman and watched his tone around women especially because of this game had tried his patience. Sarah, the other Fate, actually provided an honest challenge and turned this into a dreaded stall match.

Sarah smiled. “I'm going to win. I'm not dumb enough to try to take your pieces so I'll just take my king and move it back and forth until you get frustrated and quit. Forward and back through time or across the board it doesn't matter.”

       Thomas glared at the girl. “So this is how a woman managed to win so many matches isn't it?”

Sarah just about leaped out of her chair floating above the pocket dimension after that statement.

       “I know how to get under your skin as well,” Thomas said with a smile. He moved a checker of his own. “And now I've turned one of my own checkers into a king. Now why'd you let me do that?”

       “But you can't catch my piece. We've played this game long enough so that no matter how many kings you get you'll never be able to get all of my pieces and I'll be able to make a move,” she told him.

Thomas laughed. “You really thought that far ahead? I doubt it. You're no supercomputer or world champion. Let's see if you're right. Let's see if I can pin you down or not.”

       The Fates kept playing. They did their moves back and forth. Thomas worked harder to get more and more kings into play, Sarah got a few more as well. But Sarah often spent most of her time making the same pieces of hers move back and forth and wiggle between specific positions. And after a long setup Thomas saw it.

      “You did actually set up a loop.” He noticed that among the many instances of the board among the sixty seconds the kings Sarah had gathered made a sort of box that protected itself from many angles in time. No matter what angle he approached from it seemed that his pieces would only be lost. And in the middle of the box were a set of pieces that she could move without breaking her defenses. If she wasn't lying this had been strategy from the beginning.

      “The question is who will get frustrated and quit first. Those are the rules after all.”

       “I'll break it.” And so Thomas began working at it. Thinking and moving pieces about while Sarah just moved hers. Their pieces moved like clockwork. In the dimension they played the game there wasn't anything like the sun or moon to tell them the passing of time, and the Fates never grew hungry or thirsty so every moment started to seem the same as the next.

That is until someone broke into the pocket dimension they were playing in.

      “We thought you were dead!” It was actually the brother of Thomas. The two players had been playing the game for about a year. When not performing their job of manipulating time to push worlds along their proper course they tend not to keep track of it perfectly. Sarah's family were notified as well since she had also been reported missing.

       After this incident the rules of the game were changed officially by the professional leagues but truthfully by the police. Pieces could not be kinged, moves could not be looped, and a match could not last longer than a day without notifying a third party.