01/07/2025
A short-film rumination on a theme, namely that of the next issue of Valet: s*x. Watch it on our YouTube channel.
To the casual chess player, there is nothing more daunting than arriving at the endgame, that moment of the contest at which Fate, looming heretofore in a quiet corner, dusts off her cudgel and prepares to strike.
To be faced with a complex arrangement of pieces at this juncture is to glimpse a sweet and pungent victory just over yonder ridge with little risk to one’s standing among his fellows; to find oneself, contrarywise, in the grip of a standard mate, imparts a shiver to the nape of the neck. For failing to bring off such a standard—hopefully well honed—mate spells irrevocable embarrassment and shame, a reputation in tatters.
But to the chess enthusiast of poetic disposition—sadly lacking in this unchivalrous age—the moment takes on a larger significance. The pieces on the board begin to blur, as a face does when you come close enough to it to kiss, and a piercing, trembling glow begins to swell in his spine. He drifts into a reminiscence—a mnemonic vision—in which the morning light falls upon his lover as she lay on her side, untroubled, still, and weightless.
His mind begins to trace her unique contours as his hand begins to float unimpeded, featherlight over the board. His moves follow the music of her gently curved toes, the backs of her knees, the valley of her waist, the brow of her shoulder, until finally, his gaze falls on her flowering hand holding the coveted piece that he has now claimed as his own.
A film by
