Khanjluri Game

My submission for last week’s Flash Friday (150 word story challenge) got another honorable mention, which surprised me. I figured my story was too obscure to appeal. The prompt picture showed two Georgian nationalists of the late nineteenth century, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess at a St. Petersburg cafe. I researched themen and discovered that both were presumed to have been assassinated, by Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, or by the TsaristOkhrana.

We were instructed to include...