Recursive Words

After a day cleaning the house from top to bottom, I slept on the sofa last night – to avoid any chance of catching the bug my other half had on Friday night. My youngest daughter and her baby have been on lock-down too – staying in their room to avoid any chance of catching anything while I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned.

It looks like we’re out of the woods now.

While wrapped in a blanket on the sofa last night I watched a documentary on the TV about the Polgar sisters – the youngest of which, Judit, was the strongest female chess player on the planet for decades. She may still be – she retired while still at the top.

Something that particularly struck me about Judit’s story was her game against Garry Kasparov in 1994 – when he violated the touch-move rule (he essentially cheated). He was interviewed about it during the documentary – decades later – and instead of being contrite, came across as incredibly conceited, arrogant and dishonest.

I’m guessing the documentary gave rise to the very, very odd dream I then had.

I was travelling with work, and had a laptop and clothes in my backpack. For some reason I took a detour en-route, and ended up at a railway station where I met up with an old friend – a professional chess player. Here’s the odd thing – I have no memory of ever meeting the girl in the real world – but apparently I had known her for years. She ran towards me on the railway platform, and we hugged before setting off to find her fiancé – who was waiting in-line in a coffee shop within the station.

I shook hands with her fiancé, and was in the middle of exchanging greetings when he suddenly looked past me in horror – and realised their bags had vanished – and so had the backpack I had placed at my feet moments before. The hollow feeling was horrific.

And that’s when I woke up.

For a few minutes after waking up, I worked through the moment in my head – realising there had been some jostling in the coffee shop, and wondering if there was anything I might have done differently – if I should have had air-tags in my bag, or something similar.

I’m still thinking about it now – an event that never happened – hours later.