GG Stoica

Andrei Stoica kept sheep in the Transylvanian hills for fifty years, in a job where the day was decided by weather and nothing was ever brought forward. He plays one game in an evening. Not a match, not a session, one game, and then he stops and says goodnight, and he has never given a reason for it. He speaks almost not at all while it lasts. He does not appear to mind losing it, though he does mind if the other man leaves without a word at the end. There is one exception to the silence. In the bear-off he counts them off aloud, one at a time, winning or losing, because fifty years of counting a flock in at dusk have left him unable to trust a number he has not said.