Diavadana

The first paragraph from a short story I have only just started writing:

On his first night in Dushanbe, Mark got drunk on arak and was beaten repeatedly at chess by an old Russian named Anatoly. The gristle-faced Russian had stayed in Tajikistan through the collapse of communism and six years of civil war, only to fill every moment with stories regaling the glory days of soviet occupation. His moves, when he did make them, where fast and deadly. Mark nodded at the man's broken English and tried to concentrate on the board; on the pieces that moved and danced across its chequered surface; on the interplay of opposing forces, and how the tide always shifted in favour of one or the other. He thought of what he'd been sent there to do and drank every glass of cloudy liquor that was passed his way.

Copyright 2007 - Andrew J.McKiernan