My whisky sour leaves rings on the old bar’s oak. Absentminded in this dusty place two locals argue over nothing. Wars of logic drown in weak beer without grace or urging. Drunken muscle insults – brace for impact – barefisted opponents glare. The leering bartender will get a taste another runaway led to his lair. [...]

As daybreak wakes the grimy checkered street, failure emerges – as a manic Czar of Russia shambles past the Bishop’s Bar – with an automaton’s ungainly feet. The crumbling curbside has become his seat of power. Routed in a white queen’s war, he lost his forces fighting from afar and endgame, great rooks swarmed to [...]