Turn five. Pawn meets grasshopper in the shadow of the lowercase squares. Neither party is thinking of company. Midgame is a maelstrom of emergent chaos held together by the rules of the board. Down here the pieces are stagnant. In the cafe where nothing happens pawn keeps to her light-coloured square and stirs the mint leaves in her daiquiri. She lights a cigarette in a diagonal square. Grasshopper leans in. Lights his. The sunlight dapples the alternating tiles in spots of margarine yellow, filtered through the thick glass display of key lime pies in the window. Distinctions melt in the heat. The battle for this quadrant will intensify in approximately an hour; in an hour all the file will burn.

Turn six. They talk about how things might move. Pawn takes to the teleological. She surrounds herself with things that draw incrementally towards an end. Ice cubes crack beneath her teeth. There is a future out there in which being 'out there' might mean something. It's a point she feels not by sight but by movement. Movement is a piece's best way of knowing. The space of this board is bound to the bones of this body. One never knows, she explains, what distant attacks one's vital organs are blocking. "Can't you feel it? It's like a hot shot of epinephrine." The question reflects like electric light on their lacquered faces. Grasshopper's bent one elbow, looking intently over her shoulder to some place she doesn't care to see.

Turn seven. His gaze meets the clock on the far wall of the cafe, marking out the seconds as they go. Pawn doesn't mind. What she needs is now. What she needs is here. Grasshopper snaps back. "Well, some of us are better off believing that we should fall in love one breathless step at a time." In a movie this would be inexcusable. On the board it's anything but. In the perpetual state of war that surrounds them to be honest is the most terrifying thing of all. Grasshopper fakes a smile. Grasshopper checks his phone. He's due in the back rank in several moves.

Turn eight. Pawn leans in, conspiratorially. "All of us are - it's just a matter of our step." Leans back. Takes a drag. Acts innocent. All innocence is a matter of holding still before the break. White meets black in the melting heat of the afternoon and nobody in the cafe bats an eye. Elsewhere, princesses and knights are dancing in garages. Trench formations crackle under the threat of discovered attacks. Grasshopper doesn't really know how to sense these things, thinks mostly in terms of distance. Situations rise to meet him. For example, rising now on the wind of the street, a gunshot. At the right time, grasshopper thinks, there is no safer place than at the arm of another.

Turn nine. Black meets white on an adjacent tile. Elbows meet upon the table. The second hand laps the minute. The pawn's manicured nails click on the lychee-stained glass. The sun is a crystallised pie. Boy, do they look delightful. An errant kangaroo takes their order and delivers it to a distant kitchen square.

Turn ten. Don't talk about the time. Talk about other things. Pawn's insistent on other things. Once the centre clears up, she says, she might be going off to college. Grasshopper once saw mate in six in the edge of his frame. "The players blundered", he suspects. All of this too much to handle in one glass. Without asking he takes a sip from hers leaving lipstick grey and heavy on the rim. Mint on his gums. "Sorry." "It's alright." Is she moving closer or is she keeping to her tile? Certainly something dangerous in her eyes, in the way they only look one step ahead. Up close she's the vicious one. His distance binds him, keeps him looking for openings. What else did he expect coming to a place like this? He distracts with phrases learnt from practiced openings seen elsewhere. He thinks it safe not to concern her. But the midgame is happening all around them as they speak.

Turn eleven. As they speak, he studies her eyes, black on black. She studies his ivoried own. Curious, how lucid, she thinks. The ice cubes crack betwixt her teeth. She smiles ebony. The cafe is empty. The kangaroo returns their order from a few tables away. A crystalline plate and two forks. "About this date - it's okay if you don't want to. It's okay for us to stay near each other like statues, like queens and paralysed kings." He thinks feigned charity will faze her. She hides her reply in a forkful of key lime pie. "It will end," says her grip, or at least that's what he thinks. "No doubt. It will collapse." Perhaps that is enough of a resolution for him.

Turn twelve. Exchange more pleasantries. Compliment on apperances. Not so much words flow from their mouths as pivots. A complicated machine. At length each gets into position. She thinks he's got her message; he's relieved she hasn't gotten his. After all the midgame had always been with them in their flesh. Instead of probing distance, each can find solace in the possibilities of adjacency. And in her case he is just another project. Pure reciprocity. They can slide past each other like engine parts. The game is always happening everywhere on the board. She finishes her forkful of sunlight. The second hand melts and melts across the tiles.

Turn thirteen. The information of the front reaches them at last: a line of pawns cannibalised each other off the fifty-sixth file. After that, mad tension degenerates into warfare. Kangaroo draws concealed rifle and kills five. Pawn leaves cafe, takes Grasshopper in tow. Hand held out a diagonal behind. The evening is consumnated in her apartment: Pawn on top, Grasshopper below, wishing with all his heart for something between them to soften the blow.