EPTWell, I have managed to finish this one short story. So I'll open this blog with it:
~*~
Her life had been perfect, at least for her. She lived in a big house, and she had lots of toys which she could play with, without having to look for a playmate. During Christmas and her birthday she received more toys from her parents and from other relatives whose names she had not bothered to remember. And so she had new toys which replaced thise old ones she got tired of. She did not feel the need to play with another kid.
That is, until her ninth birthday. On that day one of her uncles gave her a chess set. She had never seen one before, and the next morning she studied the rules for the game, until she felt that she was ready to play the game. She felt excited at the prospect of playing chess, and so one day she set the pieces up on the board, and made the first move . . .
But the next move never came, for she was alone. She walked around the house, looking for someone to play with. But her mother was busy in the kitchen, and her father was out at work. So she got back to her room and stared at her chess set. Soon she got tired of doing that, and she walked to the window. For the first time in her life, she lifted the curtains to see what lay outside her house.
She had never really noticed their neighbourhood. Across the road stood a house smaller than theirs, with a front lawn smaller than theirs. On the lawn sat a boy, staring at her--
She drew back in surprise. Then she thought, maybe he would like to play with me. So she went to her mum and asked her if she could play with the kid who lived in the house across theirs to play with her. Her mother smiled and agreed, and she trotted off, carrying the chess set with her.
'Would you like to play chess with me?' she asked him, after they had exchanged names. 'I don't know how?' he replied, so she explained the rules to him. Soon, they were playing chess. She never had such fun playing with her old toys before. She enjoyed it so much that she did not notice her mother calling her to supper.
They spent the next day the same way, except that she invited him to play in her front lawn. She had never been happier, finally playing something with someone else. But soon the boy grew tired of playing chess. He began to throw pieces at the birds that he saw walking at the lawn. Some of the pieces he threw ended up stuck in the roof, yet he continued to throw the pieces, ignoring the girl's plea to stop. But she did not try to take the pieces away from him, fearing to be alone again more than anything else.
Christmas came. The uncle who had given her the chess set asked her if she already knew how to play the game. She said yes. And so he asked her to take out the chess set so they could play, promising to teach her some of the strategies that he knew. But when she took out the chess set, her uncle inspected the pieces and asked her, 'Where are the other pieces?'
~*~
Criticisms, grammatical corrections, etc, will be welcome.
