Literature
Checkered Squares: By the Black Petaled Man
By the wailing pool of black, sat a table, a table marble white. As white as the fountain pool, as sinister as liquid black. Upon this table white rested a checkered square, a checkered square of red and black to match the roses there. Many a game and many a night were lost atop these checkered squares, found on table marble white next to a pool of liquid black. And as the pool of liquid black sat on fountain of marble white, so did these checkered squares rest dolefully on blood spilled there. Many a man would wager there upon the checkered squares against the man of petal black. And many a many would lose more than he dared on games of checkered squares. What drove sane men to seek him there, he never knew. What stirred the men to wager more than dare and lose a flower there. A flower just discarded upon a checkered dare. Woe to the poor girls, for this isn’t fair, for they dared to not be there, now they shall lay bare. But a clever man, the petal’d man is, for
