30th Day - Counterclockwise

Reading time: 2 min

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

They called him CCW, short for Counter Clockwise, and there was a picture of his forgettable face on the walls of every betting shop in the world.

He’d never placed a penny on a horse or a football game, but as the PM had once said during an interview; better safe than sorry.

He liked wine, in moderation, and good food. To an unknowing eye, at restaurants, he always ordered dessert first, which might seem unusual, but it was because of his condition, and to him, it was perfectly normal.

His choice of clothes was usually as painful as a punch in the stomach, and his glasses were thick and round like binoculars, but his reputation travelled faster than gossip, and back when he was young, he’d been the object of desire of many desirable women.

A Hollywood actress had been caught, back in the eighties, leaving CCW’s house from the back door, and when she was questioned about why she would choose to spend the night with such an—apparently—ordinary man, she said: “He knows how things finish before they even start.”

Now, he was old and tired, and strangely struggled to remember where he put his glasses. People would see him only in parks, playing chess with strangers. Once, Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, came to challenge him, and CCW made him wait for fifteen minutes while he looked for his spectacles.

When, inevitably, CCW won the game, Magnus congratulated him, but CCW remained humble.

“No, sir,” he said. “I don’t play, I just watch how great you are. My moves are the only option preceding yours.”

Magnus was distractingly signing autographs, but he was a proud man and wanted to know if he was lying. “You know,” he said, “for a man who sees the future as his past, and the past as his future, you lose your glasses way too often.”

CCW grinned, reordering the pieces onto the chessboard.

“Those spectacles have been with me for sixty years, sir. They see what I see. They go backwards with me, and, believe me, that’s a poor consolation for a very lonely life.”