The Chessmaster

Seven people in the room, six talking, you listening. Your notebook holds eleven lines and not one is a rebuttal; each is why this person is saying what they're saying: who speaks for their own numbers, who's boxed in by seniority, who hasn't thought it through and is just riding the current. At minute forty-seven you open with a question, not a verdict: which data is that assumption actually built on? Three people flip through the slides at once and can't find it. Eighteen minutes later the meeting closes and no one feels you ran it, though you quietly reordered four priorities. You don't grab the floor. You don't grab the credit. You watch ten moves out and nudge, gently, toward it from today. A first-quarter moon is the board set mid-game. The handle of the Dipper takes a whole year to circle the pole and never once looks strained. A move can wait for its square. Just make sure it's still the board you actually want to win.