Once upon a time there was a child who, despite loving to play chess both with pieces and people, grew up—as many children do—and became a monster—as many children do not. He lived a life on the edge, always experimenting with this lifestyle or that lifestyle, playing with that dragon or this unicorn, chasing this dream or that nightmare without thought for tomorrow’s consequences. Eventually, submerged in the Dark Ages, drowning in a pool of blood spilling from the veins ripped from his own arms, the monster realized that he had betrayed life itself and could not continue to exist devouring and destroying everything good around him. Hauling himself out of the muck, the monster stood in front of a mirror and began to tear apart everything about himself. Piece by piece he cut away the skin. He peeled away the muscles, dropped each one to the ground, and watched as everything inside him became fluid and undone to dribble out in a slime of memory. He disconnected every bone at the joint and tossed them on the pile of remains. And then, finally, looking at nothing more than his shadow in the mirror, he filled up his ephemeral lungs as much as he could and exhaled as hard as he could until the shadow itself blew away. From within the pile of muck on the floor, a new shadow stirred within it and began to reconstruct the body and the mind and inhabit that shell. It was a new man, a new creature, a new life. And, giving up the memories of a former life, it had a new name.
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