by Henry, ©2025
(Nov. 13, 2025) — Act I
The house lights dim to the song of “Greensleeves” (1:56) as the curtain rises to the stage set as a giant chess board where the horses are pigmy horses and the castles are children’s backyard log cabins. The end game is being played.
Black King: “I think one of my best moves was the ‘European Union,’ wouldn’t you agree?”
White King: “By all means, although I warned them not to close their borders and to keep their currency.”
Black King: “That you did and had me worried for a bit but, thanks to the stupidity of the English clergy, the rest was a piece of cake. Your move.”
White King: “The blind leading the blind.”
Black King: “Which is why I’m ahead.”
White King: “I don’t think so; I’ve a few more pawns than you. I sacrificed one of my bishops for my troops and gained an advantage in the squares I control.”
Black King: “That is true; you saved your lowly pawns for a petty advantage by closing your borders. Big deal. Look at the board. I got enough of my troops over the halfway point to satisfy my plan.”
A white horse rides up to the white king. The rider, a child, addresses the king.
“Sire, I have to go to the bathroom.”
White King: “Can’t it wait?”
“Sire, no, Sire, it cannot wait.”
White King: “Oh, alright. Take that pawn over there, the one next to the castle, and put the Black King in check and he’ll immediately take you with his queen. Go ahead now.”
The horse leaps over a pawn, runs headlong into the black queen and continues off the board.
Black King: “Look what I got! I got a horse!”
White King: “You got snookered, is what you did. That child didn’t have to go to the bathroom; the horse was a decoy to make you move your queen to make way for my castle to put you in mate.”
Black King: “Let me think about this.”
White King: “You think about it while we pause for intermission.”
The curtain lowers as the house lights brighten. The pit orchestra plays “Medieval Music – Court Minstrel” (3:24), and as the music is ending, the curtain rises to the stage set as a large hospital room where we see a horse hanging on a sling with a leg bandaged, a bishop in bed wearing his miter hat with his arms and legs wrapped in bandages, the king in bed wearing his crown and, standing next to him, his queen.
White King: “What happened?”
White Queen: “The Black King blew himself up along with his troops.”
White King: “Bad loser. We lose any?”
White Queen: “No; everyone taken off the board before the explosion is just fine.”
White King: “How did you escape?”
White Queen: “There was a trap door I noticed while we were in rehearsal, so I asked one of the stagehands about it. He said to stomp on it, and it opens to a chute where you fall down into a pile of pillows, and that’s what I did. The blast torn my tiara off my head but otherwise I’m okay.”
White King: “Remind me never to play chess with a Muslim.”
At this point the curtain lowers to the song of “We are the Champions” (3:10) as the house lights brighten.
FINI