LatinosUSA

Before he arrived at the café in the High Street somewhere in London where the lorry drivers have breakfast, he was an undertaker in a faraway land where not a soul had a normal name. Thinking about it, without names there wasn’t much of a call for gravestones there. Even so they still had a few dotted about here and here and there.

Whatever, in this new land in England he took up playing chess. The café had a chess set and everyday he’d sit there playing against anyone willing to have a go.

He played by instinct. He got very good at it. He got so good at it that opponents and other people who hung around watching would ask the café owner, ‘Who’s that? What’s his name?’. The café owner got fed up  being asked if he knew the chess players name, so one day he asked that man from the faraway land if he had a name. The man from the faraway land said, ‘No’, hence he became known to everyone as ‘NO’ even though it was clear that it wasn’t an actual name.

Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved, save for the the photo. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, and lending, prohibited.

Sometime later a girl with expensive glasses with thick lens who’d never ever smiled, arrived at the café from her home in Rome. She’d flown in, but not on a plane, helicopter or a rocket. She spoke good English and played a mean game of chess.

One day she saw ‘NO’ sat at the table where the chess board was being played and in doing so she went over to say hello and asked for a game. ‘NO’ was good about that and told her ‘OK’. However, when ‘NO’ asked the girl who had flown in from Rome but not on a plane, helicopter or a rocked if she had a name. Amazingly, she locked up and replied, ‘I am YES’.

It was wintertime when ‘YES’ became the Queen who protected her King until one day ‘NO’ told her he’d prefer to be the Knight who protected her, after all he was an older man and she a young gal. At last she smiled for the very first time.