a short story on radicalization and seeing the truth with your own eyes
KMC
All pieces aligned, all strategies plotted, is everyone ready?
I stare at my flag at the right-hand corner of the golden-brown board, guarded by a private, the colonel, and the 4-star general.
I look at my opponent’s slitted beady eyes. His yellow-skinned fingers tapping on the board. His relaxed stature, as if this game isn’t to be taken seriously; that this would end easily. Like a game with a blind man whose fingers cannot feel. A sly grin is plastered on his lower face. A shiver runs down my spine and I begin to feel queasy. Something is suspicious.
I glance at the arbiter, he’s just like me, wearing the same barong tagalog, brown skin, and all. We Filipinos have integrity. “Kababayan”, I shake his hand. This should be a fair fight. This will be a fair fight. However, my stomach feels otherwise. Something just might happen again…
The game starts.
I shake my head and let the worries fall through. I move my private forward. It has become a habit of mine; merely a sacrificial lamb to test the waters.
I can hear the sound of metal being tapped on the wood. Tap… Tap… Tap… After an exchange of turns, my blue pieces are being captured one by one. Tap… Tap… Tap… My opponent’s strategy just seems perfect; as if his pieces were precisely placed to attack each piece of mine. Tap… Tap... It reminds me of a buyer choosing vegetables at the wet market. Each piece he sets his eye on, he would merely place one of his own standing nearby, and it is as good as gone. Tap… Somehow, I feel his eyes staring at the back of my head, looking at the pieces, knowing which to attack; but, of course, that is just a thought. Tap… Tap…
Soon after, half of my metal army has been cleared from the board. I have yet to capture a single piece.
“If I lose, at least I know that I’ve lost with honor”, I relish in the thought; merely an attempt to bring myself some comfort, a matter of acceptance for my soon-to-be demise. Tap… Tap…
I looked at the arbiter, as he picked up my captured sergeant. The air feels uneasy, I could not understand. Interesting enough, one of my opponent’s pieces stood out. He hardly moved any of the other pieces. In an attempt for capture, I investigated its position. Tap. For a piece that powerful, it must be a spy, or a 5-star general!
Tap.
I attack with my highest ranking general… It was captured. It must be a spy. I am sure of it. No other piece could defeat it.
Tap… I advance my private into the mysterious piece’s place…
Captured…
Very suspicious…
What is this nonsense? How could this be? I search through the innermost crevices of my mind, maybe there is another rule, a loophole, something that could explain what was going on.
With my last spy, I attack again…
Also captured.
I am running out of options. My 3-star general, captured. My 1st lieutenant, captured. My captain, captured. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap!
All seized by who knows what kind of piece that is. The wooden board is growing more visible like a brown and grey painting, with the latter colour slowly being devoured by the first; leaving most of the folded metal pieces facing away from me.
This doesn’t look like a fair fight… I can’t be the only one that thinks it’s an unfair fight… I can’t be the only one who sees that something is wrong… Or do I just feel that way because it’s on my side of the board? I bask in my confusion. I contemplate whether I should speak up or remain silent…
Let’s just see how the game goes.
Not long after, only four pieces remained on my side of the board. Tap… Tap… Tap… Tap… The 4-star general, the last private… Tap! and the colonel. Each being picked up by the arbiter, and soon to be clumped together with their fallen comrades. Fallen in vain.
My flag remains. He must be saving the best for last; like a child setting his chicken skin aside after devouring the meat.
Tap! Before my flag could make it to the other side, it was seized by the mysterious piece. The arbiter collected the captured piece, signalling my loss.
The game ends.
I stare at my opponent, right at the slits of his eyes; I see hellfire, I see the look of triumph. He conquered once again. I have dealt with him in several games but never had I seen an exchange like this. Something just isn’t right.
I look at the arbiter, my fellow countryman; I see the uneasiness in the beads of his sweat. Is this a hint of guilt? A sign? A look of confusion? I must be overthinking this.
I turn my back as I gather the pieces and place it in the wooden box. I hear the clinking of coins and the folding of paper. The smell is ever so familiar, like the 16th day of the month. This wasn’t the only time this has happened. I hear stories from other players before me from when they went against a white man, but this is the first time for as far as I could remember, that it had been this… explicit… Or had it always been this way? Seeing it happen right in front of my eyes…
“Do I look like a fool to you?”, I whisper under my breath, “I am not as blind as you think I might be… or had I? I sit on the thought. I guess one can’t really see the colours if their eyes had been covered for so long.
The arbiter’s pocket is full of blue paper and currency.
I take a peek at the powerful piece that won his battle… It’s my opponent’s flag. The red flag with the ever-familiar yellow stars.
Of course.
Realization hit me like a coconut falling from the tree. A revelation that once lived at the back of my head, that I had forgotten the moment I turned blind with naivety. A declaration of truth you could only see if you played the game with your eyes wide open, radicalized.
That’s right… Nobody plays by the rules anymore.
We don’t play the game; The arbiter plays us…
Our fellow countrymen used as tools to fill the arbiter’s pockets.
This situation is much too familiar, is it not?
The Rice Cooker Journal 