Beckett and Call, or, Molly Blooms via Mrs. Joyce – A Creative Response

By Don Roberts

Chess, and one of them makin a move and now himself lookin over me shoulder as if to see what I am scratching onto this paper but its me body and solely about my business I am irish in any language including the constant frenchiness of jamesy and  his so-called secretary and so he looks  to my dress buttoned but he will butt in to allow me comfort he says when its his own comfort he wishes he could get his hands on while I have my hands on this womanifesto about how I must not allow not a reef nor a barnacle to founder me but he ahs found the rounder me and I let it for awhile and then I take the knife I use to sharpen the pencil and put it under his nose first lifting that blessed now dry heavy breather and he with so many knives at his eyes backs and fronts away saving me from things literal and literary like the remarks about missing my periods with no understanding about my attack on capitalism he and sam can snicker and fallto with their books and papers and chess game yes chess and sam paying back his tootleage with james not jamesy then by espousing less I wish sam  would espouse a spouse and leave these rooms with natural sounds and not the game chess and  me to wonder about the attraction with all that attention to his majesty and the bishops coming back and forth at the less than direct and the horse not knowing whether to go here or there and her majesty going every which way to protect her husband and the little headed pawns which is u just afraid to go forward unless pushed and then a little bit and a little bit and if no one sees us we may get to the edge of the board and turn magically into one of our betters but always the game is about the king chess if there was an irish shcess game we would remove the royalty and the mounted police and then the landed gentry and the churchmen and we little folk would mill around until one confused piece remained  does that stop sam oh no and he wants to be calling it endgame and no rump council would approve and I would be happy to be a witness that the game has no end and that the king finally quits out of sheer boredom or boardom is you please chess now that they have left the room I would like to add that I am not a fan of the english writer shakespeare unless in is miss beachs store but I am a little leary of other explanations when there is a blind king on a throne and a fool mucking about never mind the dustbin chorus with the woman of course having not a leg to stnd on why not admit it but noooo we must use fanciness like nihilism a word I had to look up and found by accident because who expects an h to be in there and so when they were going on about nihilism I spoke up and said if you are talking about Egypt  and are crazy to go there it is senile dementia and they were ever so put out since anything clever must come from there mustn’t it chess  but it will pan out chess with james being less and sam being nobel and the king is dead chess

This is a finalist in our Endgame Creative Response Contest. From February 28-March 4, you can visit our Facebook page to vote for this entry to win our grand prize!