The Black-and-White Jungle: How Chess Got Me Through My Parents’ Divorce
Editor’s Note: The following piece was chosen as a finalist in NextShark’s personal Essay Contest 2019. The views expressed in story are the writer’s own.
The first time I saw a chess board, I stood — an unsmiling first grader — spellbound by the curious horses and castles that the wizened fifth graders shuffled confidently in my school cafeteria. Beneath the ornate wood surface of those pieces, I discovered a uniquely layered beauty.