Friendship Beyond the Veil (A Haiku)

Retold by Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: I remember hearing this little tale a while back, where these gentlemen who were best friends used to play chess together all the time. Each of them tended to move in certain ways, and they knew each other’s tricks. Then one of the gentlemen passed away. Eventually, one of his children bought him a remarkable chessboard for the time, since it had a system that could come up with its own moves to make based on the moves made by the opposite player (kind of like playing chess against a computer), in a time before computers were widespread. The story goes that the gentleman played a game and was astonished to realize the system was making moves similar to that of his best friend. Convinced it was indeed his friend playing with him from beyond the grave, the gentleman continued those games for years, until he passed away as well. Quite a story, I’d say!]

My very best friend

we will play together still

in the next world