Everything lead to this.
"Am I dead?" Carlo repeated the question. He is unsure whether he really wants his father to answer him. Looking around the place, it seems like Earth. It feels like he's in Venice. The canals and the place are similar to that of television advertisements and he can see people's faces, so clearly that he can distinguish a mole from the age spots surrounding the old man's face. According to old folks, ghosts does not have any faces. Ghosts have blurry faces because of their fading identity and their image should be shadowy because they don’t have any bodies to begin with. He somehow felt relieved after remembering these premises. There's no way I can be dead now, he said to himself.
The old man saw the tension in his eyes. He knew that his son is confused and he's trying hard not to believe that his dead father is right in front of him. He scratched his head and said, "How should I put this? Well son, you really are dead. Dead as in expired." The son laughed like a drunk man, but then he stared at his father’s eyes. His father’s eyes scared him. His body becomes numb and he is unable to move. It seems that his surroundings and every process of his body stopped. The world skipped a second. Frightened and petrified, he yelled. The son is frustrated and mad. He smacked the checkers board and all the pieces fall off the table. “Why now?” he cried, "Why so fast? Just a moment ago, me and Pallas are talking about my death but why so sudden? I am not prepared! I need more time to digest what Pallas have said! Why was I not given a chance to say sorry, even say I love you to the one I love? My memorial plan is not yet prepared too. What will happen to my body?” He cried, “I died without any heroic drama? What a worthless death! Its too fast...too fast for me to accept.” Carlo looked at his father. He wondered why is he not mourning when he saw his son, in his early thirties, full of opportunities, dead? Carlo is irritated to see his father untroubled while he’s panicking awfully.
“Why are you so carefree?!” Carlo yelled.
“If it’s your time, it’s your time. If it’s not your time, it’s not your time.” His father said.
Carlo didn’t say a word. Surprised, he give a thought to whether he’s going to be inspired to his father’s words even if its meaning is opposite from Ishta’s. His father picked up the checkers’s discs and placed it back to on the board.
“Let’s play.”
Carlo nodded.
Carlo made the first move. He is white.
His father made his first move too.
After several moves, Carlo ate one of his father’s disc.
His father countered, having several jumps, eating three of Carlo’s disc.
Carlo retaliated; he ate one.
His father made a move, simply moving one disc strategically.
Carlo attacked. His disc jumped two times. He has more pieces than his father now.
His father smiled, “One. Two. Three. Four. King!” one of his piece is at the furthest row now.
“Oh damn!” Carlo retorted.
“You know,” his father said, “Life is not like chess because in chess, you can move backward and can somehow undo your move. Life is more like checkers; our only move is forward, not that straight, sometimes diagonally, but at least its going forward. In every move we do, we can’t assure ourselves that we can’t fail or we can’t be ‘eaten’. One thing's for sure, we need to make a move because if we won’t, our lives will stagnate, the game will not end. Just like checkers, there will come a time that one of our pieces will be eaten. Life’s adventure does not depend on how many treasures you hold; it depends on every obstacle you’ve beaten with the least sacrifice, and still have enough power to move till the end.”
