Free The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis Page A

set the tone and direction, and get the hell out of Dodge.”
    By this time, Angus had arranged the chess board and was sitting patiently with black. I set aside his E for E bible and slipped into the seat with white. I’d been playing a bit online since my last encounter with Angus and felt a little more confident at the board. I remembered his comments about the shortcomings in my game and tried to avoid them this time around. I kept my queen on the back rank for an appropriate length of time. I paid more attention to my pawn structure – something I seldom did. I castled at the earliest opportunity, securely sequestering my king under the protection of three pawns and a rook. Finally, I was careful not to split infinitives, dangle participles, promulgate nonexistent verbs like
prioritize, access
, and
impact
, or end my sentences with a preposition. (That was a practice up with which Angus would not put. My apologies to Winston Churchill.)
    I won the first game. Angus was steamed. I’d taken his queen with a clever little move where I sacrificed my bishop to check the king, revealing a threat to his queen by my rook. Of course, he had to take my bishop with his king (he was in check), so I calmly took his queen with my revealed rook. Nice. It was the kind of move you can pull on a player like Angus once. So I did.
    I was still enjoying my victory and lounging on my laurels when he advanced his queen pawn to start game two. I could tell Angus was mad at himself for underestimating me. It took 13 moves for him to pulverize me in game two. A combination of hisanger-induced determination and my game-one honeymoon hangover was my swift undoing.
    We shook hands and decided we’d play the rubber match the following night after my campaign meeting. I asked Angus if he’d like to come to meet the campaign team.
    “Och, that’s a shame, but I just cannae do it tomorrow night. I’m rustproofin’ the steel plate in my head,” he deadpanned. A simple “No, I don’t think so” would have sufficed.
    As before, he walked me down to the boathouse and disappeared into his workshop while I climbed the long stairway to bed. I was beat again that night.
    The heating grates once again gave up the sounds of Angus working on the hovercraft and talking. I couldn’t make out the muffled words, but the tone seemed friendly. I heard nothing for a long while as I lay down and closed my eyes. As I dozed off, again I heard faint weeping, drifting up through the vents.
    DIARY
Tuesday, September 3

My Love,
I like to have a run-in with “the Rumper” at least once every ten years whether I need it or not. Today, I needed it. He is truly a stench of the first order. One of my favourite pastimes has become piercing his pomposity. I took Daniel to meet with Rumplun so that we could finalize my escape from E for E and start Daniel’s incarceration. On instinct, Rumplun flexed his meagre muscles and flatly refused. As I’d instructed, Daniel sat silent as a dormouse while I pulled the dean’s strings. When it was clear he was not to be moved, I slipped Montebello into the play and that rumphole rolled over and offered me his throat in short order. The forms confirming my release were dutifully signed and my sentence commuted. Daniel has no idea what’s in store for him. I feel a wee bit bad about it. No, I don’t. I wish I did, but I don’t. You werealways there to help me with empathy. It’s hard mustering it without you.
    I confess I’ve given no thought to the implications of letting my name take up space on the ballot in a federal election. I was so focused on eluding E for E that it seemed a minuscule price to pay. Anyway, the 39-day countdown to the election, or E-day as Daniel calls it, is expected to commence the day after tomorrow. Fortunately, while Eric Cameron is a slippery scumbag, he’s so far ahead in the polls he could die and still win.
    Tomorrow, Daniel has threatened to tell me about my campaign even though the