Somewhere out there, an alien child sits cross-legged over a board that looks suspiciously like our lives here on earth.

The pawns bear an unsettling resemblance to us, miniature echoes of human lives, etched with our expressions, suspended mid-motion.

The child, bright-eyed, half-bored, half-curious, rolls the dice with no sense of consequence.

We are the pawns he moves.

We think we are choosing our paths. Making plans, saving dates. But really, we only see the square we stand on. 

He sees the board.

On a random wednesday, he rolled the dice.

One of the kindest men i know, gentle in ways that rarely get noticed, woke up with nothing more than a sore throat on that fateful wednesday.

Just a minor square, something to pass through quickly, or so it seemed.

The man fit in a doctor’s consult, his mind drifting imperceptibly to the thermals he needed to buy for the vacation he had been waiting for all year.

From above, the child moved the piece that bore the man’s name, forward.

Not to the Alps. Not to snow or quiet mornings in unfamiliar places. But to a square that read differently.

Ten wednesdays later, today, the same man lies in a hospital bed.

The thermals remain unbought. The trip exists only as a plan that never got its turn.

Instead, there is a gown with blue and white stripes, thin enough to reveal a chemo port, fixed and silent, marking a game that has changed without warning.

What went wrong?
Which move should have been different?

But the man did nothing wrong.

He was simply moved. No declaration, No intention. Just the absent-minded slide of a pawn between a child’s fingers.

And that is our scary reality.

Sometimes, no amount of planning can shield a pawn from where it is placed next.

We, the pieces, keep moving, never quite knowing which square is waiting for us next.

Perhaps the cruelty is not in the movement, but in our illusion of control, the quiet arrogance of believing we were ever holding the dice.

The child rolls the dice again.

The game goes on!