Writers 3-1: J.M.G. Clézio: Checkers

I look out from a window at the corner of third avenue and forty ninth street, all is unraveling, there is decay, past tense, promises not kept. The impossible feeling that I see every one and everything, it all is possible only because it is disintegrating already, the yellow cabs, venomous fruits of a tin landscape covered in lead clouds, an Indian prince his lungs already in a state of collapse behind the drive wheel, giving instructions for software customer support through a hand-held to recover a hard-drive already erased by a virus, the meter for a Mumbai wedding ticking, a wedding with an already unhappy wife with a happy lover and a deceived husband, the sky nothing more than a bumped Roman mirror, reflecting the folly image of the glass checkers board of city offices, one stone jumping over the other, the clicking on the pavement, like the stone hitting the board by force to speed the loss, of three girls in high pumps, one already moaning under the weight of an overweight, overpaid, overconfident executive, her overestimated love for the night enhanced by twelve dollar cocktails, all paid for with laughter and smiles in return, not knowing to choose from which, loveless, I choose to look away at the herd of lighted and darkened offices, guarded by security officers with intimidating badges, labels and stitches, with broken up families, not certain what to do with their lives, they too, ordering drinks, four dollar beers, one fool jumping over the other, and finish my glass of red wine, Vinsantos 2004, from Santorini, because I only drink wine from grapes grown on the ashes of vanished civilizations, dried in the sun, an unbroken genetic line of descend, but on this board no kings, no queens, no knights, no castles, we are all unnamed pieces, not even pawns, soulless, already dead before the game starts, sushi rolls on a black plastic tray with transparent cover, fake crab, avocado and cucumber, fake ginger, a Korean smile and thoughts about the family capital of twenty thousand dollars and a college fund, not even good enough for community college, but even suicide cannot evade such a shameless death of living, so I look away, but the split image of souls and bodies, false forms of truth that race up and down the thousands years old city plan of squares, is even out there, now and then, I close my eyes, and every time I skip, I blink, I miss a piece, and another wretched man is born, the first act of each new born, to tear apart his mother's vagina, and every one screaming, crying, tears flow, and a slimy miser makes an impression, for the hundred and billionth time a new unique moment, we keep believing it, and we go and drink, and fuck and fall in love, and I don't even dare to go out anymore.