Pawns in the clutches of Death. That we all are.

-A merry Irishman, downing a shot for his 50th birthday

Death's pawn proved most useful today. Death was a chess master, after all. It captured Gods bishop en passant. This one move, however, was deeply concerning. Perhaps God is the only one who could make Death nervous.

"All knowing? Yet this? Each year you humor me, but I, I who may best the best of men, cannot best God. In this one move you have sealed the fate of the rest of this game? What have you planned?"

The clouds of heaven whirled patiently around the gilded chessboard as the two specters, placeholders for the universe's greatest forces, stared across from each other. The yearly chess match between God and Death was at hand. The reward? The lives of every being on Earth. God, being all powerful, only grants this to Death to remind him who is truly in charge of the fate of the life. Death, lover of games, always accepts the challenge, but was never prepared to ever succeed.

God answered, "You, with all the power and cunning I have bestowed on you, still don't know why I have created you, or my people, or all that is."

"What trick is this? Why hand over your precious people?"

"I. TRICK. NONE."

The clouds stopped. Silence known to no man fell over the heavens. And then God continued.

"Death, you must answer this yourself. What is it that I, God Almighty, Father of Heaven and Earth, do not have?"

Death was a master at riddles. But riddles are Satan's work. Death understood Satan much more deeply, could strike a deal with him, could trick him. The Word of God has no distortion. The Word of God is almost not words at all, but something that shakes the most fundamental level of reality.

Death did not think the answer, but merely knew it upon the utterance of the question.

"You, my Lord, have not having not."

Death was quick, but did not have everything sorted out yet. Death was merely another one of God's imperfect creations. There was only one being in the universe that could make Death feel small.

He questioned God, "And why would you relinquish your creations, those which have not, those who complete You, to me?"

"I relinquish none."

"You have lost them, willingly!"

"I have lost none."

"Why this error?"

"I make no error. What will the bringer of Death do after you have brought Death to all? What Death will you be once Life is no more? Where will you reside once you have restored perfection to my creation? What have I given you this day? What have I relinquished to you? I give you none but your death. Until this day, you, Death, have not known death for yourself. Let this be the last game we play."

The silence returned. The apparitions vanished into the heavens once more into the cosmic entities unknowable to mankind. The next day, the sun rose once more to an Earth still teeming with life.

The chessboard remains in the heavens, the pawn of Death where it had been left, but its color reversed, a permanent reminder to the being who thought he had bested God.