My Short Story

It's called "The World's Greatest Chess Player"

A delicious smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken filled the room as Ronald Rockstone opened a bucket of his favourite food. Ronald was in his office on the 45th floor of Rockstone Tower. When he opened his laptop and saw his net worth, it had fallen to 800 million. On his desk near him was Forbes magazine, saying his net worth was over five billion after being interviewed last week. Then, the phone rang. Still greasy from the chicken, his right hand picked up the phone. On the other end of the call was Arthur Jensen, the head of NBC.

“Ronald, the network will cancel your reality TV show ‘The Genius’ unless you do something drastic. The ratings are plummeting fast. The audience is getting bored of seeing you solve those fake complicated equations. We need exciting new content.” Before Arthur hung up, he said, “If your show gets cancelled, you will be forever known as a loser.” That last word made Ronald wince and caused his stomach to churn.

Ronald’s loyal assistant, Hans Moleman, walked in. “Is everything okay, sir? You look stressed, even more than usual.” Hans knew Mr. Rockstone tended to overshare when stressed since he had worked for the fake billionaire for over a decade.

“Everything is falling apart, Hans. My show might be cancelled, and my fourth marriage is failing; I have not seen Anastasia in weeks. Plus, today, June 1st, 2015, marks the tenth anniversary of my father’s passing. Rupert was always cruel to me and never showed me any love or affection; no hugs, no nothing. He told my older brother and me that you had to be a ‘killer’ and a ‘winner’ in life; this was the only thing that mattered. He bullied my brother Fred and pressured him to work in the family business when all he wanted was to be a pilot. This emotional abuse led to his alcoholism, and Fred deteriorated. He died in 1984 at 47. I’m 70 years old today, and he would have been 78. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.”

“What will you do about your reality TV show? Perhaps the audience realizes it’s all fake, like all reality TV. Surely, they must know it by now.”

“No, most of them don’t know it’s fake. They are just bored, I guess. I will come up with something big soon to spice things up,” Ronald said. The next day, Ronald came up with a brilliant idea to bring media attention to his show and boost the ratings.

About two weeks later, on June 16th, Ronald launched a big publicity stunt and invited the press for a special announcement at Rockstone Tower. In anticipation, the TV cameras captured him going down an escalator. “I am the world’s greatest chess player!” Ronald confidently said in front of a large crowd of reporters, “I know more about chess than anybody in this room, and it makes me sad. Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen are all idiots compared to me. Magnus Carlsen is low energy, Garry Kasparov is a lightweight, and Bobby Fischer is greatly overrated. I know all about chess pieces like the rook, the bishop, and the cardinal. My favourite strategy is the Queen’s Gamble. I challenge anyone to play me in Central Park, here in Manhattan, this Sunday morning.”

Many news networks broadcasted the story, and it spread on social media. In addition, Ronald did a massive advertising campaign by purchasing ads in many newspapers and on local television in New York City. He appeared on the front cover of many magazines, proclaiming him to be the world’s greatest chess player. He did interviews on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.

Then, the momentous day came. On Sunday, a large crowd gathered at a section of Central Park. There were many journalists there with cameras, and Ronald agreed ahead of time to have two chess referees who worked at different local chess tournaments to officiate the game. Also present were the head of NBC, Arthur Jensen, and the mayor of New York City, Rudy Macaroni. The reality was that Ronald was bluffing; he was hoping that no one would volunteer to play, and he would use this to bolster his new image to promote his show later on.

“Is anyone crazy enough to challenge me to a game of chess and be humiliated in front of everyone?” Ronald yelled to the crowd. There was a moment of silence. Then, the unthinkable happened. An 8-year-old girl with a teddy bear stepped up from the crowd and volunteered to play. “My name is Annie,” she said to the chess referees. Annie has been casually playing chess for about two years, starting at six. She learned to play chess via the computer and used different software to improve. She was estimated to have a chess rating of 1200 by a chess program, meaning she was on the boundary between beginner and intermediate.

When Ronald realized he would have to play a chess game, sweat ran down his forehead, and his legs started to tremble. The game took place at around 10 a.m. Annie was a shy, friendly girl and smiled at Ronald when the match began. After a coin toss, the referees determined that Ronald would play first as white. Annie held her teddy bear on her lap as she played and focused entirely on the game. Ronald often glanced at the media observing him and was concerned about what headlines the media outlets would soon generate.

After about twenty moves, the moment Ronald was dreading happened. In her soft, innocent voice, Annie said, “Checkmate.” There was an audible gasp from the crowd. The chess arbiters concurred that the game was played fairly and in accordance with the rules. Annie smiled at Ronald, offered her hand for a handshake, and said, “Good game.” Ronald was still in shock and did not move for a moment. He glanced to his right and saw the angry face of Arthur Jensen, who shook his head in disappointment. The word “loser” popped into Ronald’s mind, and the menacing look of his late father, Rupert, flashed in his mind. Then, an image of Ronald’s brother, Fred, dying in the hospital also popped into his consciousness. A switch flipped in his brain.

Ronald refused to shake hands with the little girl and stormed off towards the media. He shouted, “The little girl cheated! This game was rigged! No one could defeat me, believe me! She may look nice, but she is one nasty little girl!” Then, a journalist from ABC News asked Ronald, “Didn’t the two referees validate that no cheating had occurred and that all moves were valid? What about all the cameras pointed at the game? What about all the evidence?”

Ronald said, without skipping a beat, “Screw the evidence! I am the world’s greatest chess player!” Then, a reporter from CNN asked Ronald, “Didn’t you say that the chess pieces were called the rook, the bishop, and the cardinal? What did you mean by the cardinal?” Ronald quickly answered, “I never said that! That is fake news! You are fake news! You are the enemy of the people!” A reporter from MSNBC asked Ronald, “Didn’t you say your favourite tactic was the Queen’s Gamble? Don’t you mean the Queen’s Gambit?” Ronald winced and said, “Look, no more questions! I am getting my team of lawyers, and I am suing this girl for millions! The people will find out the truth about what happened today!”

The whole incident went viral, and people around the United States and the world spoke of the event. Most media outlets reported that the game exposed Ronald as a liar and that there was no record of him in any chess tournament. However, the Fox News channel had many anchors saying someone rigged the game. Many pundits claimed that the little girl made illegal moves or perhaps cheated through her teddy bear. One anchor, Sean Vanity, asked his audience, “Why was the little girl carrying a teddy bear? Why did this teddy bear not get inspected? What is she hiding?” On the far-right conspiracy website InfoWars, Alex Bones claimed, “That little girl used witchcraft to win the game! It’s a hoax, just like climate change and the moon landing!”

Four days later, Ronald was in his bedroom on the 45th floor of Rockstone Tower, watching the news. He was flipping channels that evening and stopped at CNN. He could not believe it; Anderson Carter, the network’s most famous anchor, interviewed the little girl on primetime. Anderson asked the girl, “How do you feel about Ronald’s lawsuit against you and him lying about the game?” While holding her teddy bear, Annie said, “I think people should be more honest. If this man would lie so badly about this game of chess, perhaps he is lying about many other things in his life.” Then Anderson asked, “Do you think people should investigate his businesses and organizations?” Without hesitation, Annie answered, “Yes, if he could lie about this, he could lie about anything. I think it’s important that people find out the truth.”

Ronald yelled out, “That goddamn little girl!” From that moment and several hours into the night, he tweeted incessantly to his 10 million followers. One tweet stated, “That little girl is a liar, and the mainstream media is corrupt, especially CNN.” Another said, “The chess establishment controls mass media and is afraid of my intellect, so they are spreading fake news about me.” He also tweeted, “I was never invited to a chess tournament because I would make many players look bad and embarrass them,” and “The Illuminati controls the world’s chess tournaments, and they pick the champions to advance their secret agenda. Spread the truth!”

In the following weeks, many people went on Fox News to spread misinformation about the events, and InfoWars created many different conspiracy theories about Annie and the world of chess. Alex Bones told his millions of viewers, “The Illuminati is putting chemicals in the water to turn rocks into chess pieces, and the Knights Templar invented the game of chess in the 12th century to control the world. The game of chess promotes gender dysphoria since there are eight pawns in the game, representing male soldiers, who, once they reach the end of the board, can identify as a queen, becoming the most powerful piece. The game of chess will turn all our children transgender, and society as we know it will collapse. The game of chess is dangerous, and the government should ban it across all the United States or else it will lead to a communist dictatorship even worse than the Soviet Union in the 1950s.” On Fox News, Rudy Macaroni said, “The chess machines, whether it be the chess clocks or the software on Chess.com, are rigged and have been created by the socialist leader of Venezuela, Hugo Sanchez, who passed away in 2013. It’s part of a ploy to destroy American society from within. They are transforming our citizens into pawns that will be exploited to advance their evil Marxist agenda.”

In early August, Ronald told Hans Moleman at his office, “After what Annie said, a chain reaction of events that I never imagined would happen unfolded. Investigators from many government agencies are looking into all the crap I did. Seven thousand former students from Rockstone University are suing me for the fake university’s fraudulent and deceptive practices. Yesterday, A judge ordered me to close the Rockstone Foundation due to what they said was a shocking pattern of illegality. I also had to pay 2 million dollars to a group of nonprofit organizations as part of that settlement.”

By the end of 2015, Ronald told Hans, “I just had to pay a 25-million-dollar settlement to the victims of my fake university, two of my companies filed for bankruptcy, and I’m facing a 250-million-dollar civil fraud trial for all the times I lied to pay lower taxes and get higher loans. On top of that, my main lawyer, Michael Conman, was given a 3-year sentence after pleading guilty to 8 charges, mostly for crimes I asked Michael to do for me. Anastasia filed for divorce after the media revealed I paid 130,000 dollars in hush money to a porn star that I had an affair with during our marriage. I also face 34 felony counts for falsifying business records regarding my hush money scheme. I don’t understand what is happening. I thought I would get away with all of this. That little girl screwed up everything!”

Like a madman, Ronald would be tweeting late into the night by spreading misinformation about all these developments. He spread many conspiracy theories and made many appearances on Fox News and InfoWars, claiming that these two platforms were “the only ones telling the truth.” He continued to make false claims about the little girl and even said, “Annie’s classmates should bully her because she is a loser. She is a disgrace to her family and has no friends.”

In February 2016, Ronald and Annie showed up to court. Ronald was suing her for 5 million dollars for “cheating and destroying his reputation.” The judge asked Ronald and his lawyers to provide evidence for such claims, and after not providing any, the judge ruled to dismiss the case. Speaking to the media after this decision, Ronald said, “The judge is corrupt and probably part of the Illuminati. I have obtained irrefutable evidence that the little girl had cheated.” In truth, there was no evidence whatsoever.

After a delay due to a writer’s strike, the reality TV show “The Genius” released its new episode, “The World’s Greatest Chess Player.” In this episode, Ronald played against many actors pretending to be grandmasters. With dramatic music, the show depicted Ronald playing ten chess games simultaneously. One by one, Ronald said confidently and enthusiastically, “You are checkmated!” The episode was a success and had higher ratings than previous episodes. It convinced his fans that nobody could defeat Ronald and that someone must have rigged the game in Central Park. To his fans, it seemed there was no other possible explanation. Ultimately, the evidence did not matter to his followers. Many of them believed that he made the game of chess great again.

Two months later, Ronald got a call from Arthur Jensen: “Ronald, NBC will cancel the show. Although the show’s ratings are not bad, the company is facing massive pressure from many of our biggest advertisers to cancel the show due to your behaviour that became public.” That same week, Ronald was found to have sexually abused and slandered a woman in New York City. The judge awarded the woman 5 million dollars for sexual battery and defamation. The incident occurred in 1996, but in recent years, Ronald had claimed publicly that the woman was lying. After this verdict, Ronald went on Twitter to write, “The judge is biased against me due to my superior intelligence, particularly in chess. Sad!”

On May 4th, a Wednesday, during the evening, Ronald was flipping through channels and landed on CNN. The anchor, Anderson Carter, talked about all the crimes that Ronald had committed and the new criminal charges that authorities brought against him for tax evasion, witness tampering, extortion, perjury, and wire fraud. Anderson then showed a recorded interview he had done a few days before when visiting Annie at her home. The clip started with Annie’s father hugging her and saying, “I love you, and I’m proud of you.” Ronald snapped when he heard those words and changed the channel to Fox News.

The FBI had just arrived at the entrance of Rockstone Tower to execute a search warrant. The FBI sent many agents to search his home, properties and one remaining business. They planned to seize all his computers, phones, and documents to conduct a full criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, on the 45th floor, Ronald watched his favourite news anchor, Sean Vanity, while eating his favourite food. Ronald held a large bucket of Kentucky fried chicken on his lap. Sean Vanity told the screen, “They framed Ronald Rockstone because the mainstream media and the chess community were jealous of his superior intellect. Without a doubt, Ronald is the world’s greatest chess player of all time, and that game in Central Park was rigged. Ronald is a winner.”

As Ronald heard that powerful word, a tear of joy fell from his face and splashed into the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Ronald’s voice, quivering, whispered to himself, “I am a winner. My father would be proud.” Ronald cradled the bucket close to his heart, like the little girl Annie, who held her teddy bear close to hers. As this happened, the FBI went up the escalators. The king was under siege and had no more moves left. It was checkmate.