Vladimir Zardoya had just finished his sixth shot of remarkably clear vodka and found that when he went to place it down on the overturned pallet that they had fashioned into a table, the pallet had moved. “Boris Ibramovich, what have you done with the table? How can I trust you to drink fairly when you cannot even sit fairly?”

“Oh Vlodyka, a bad dancer does not blame his testicles. It was not the table that moved, only your drunken hand. If you want to stop, please come up with a better excuse.”

“Boris, you flatter yourself. I have just begun to play this game. This has been nothing but an amuse bouche, but a drop in the very large bucket that I call my liver. Come now, pour the next glass.”

“If you are willing,” Boris said, rolling up a sleeve to prevent the condensation of the glass from dripping down his arm and onto his cuff as he poured two more shots. “Then, so am I.”

The two friends continued in this way, drinking and insulting each other until the bottle dripped its last drop at which point they cocked their heads at the table that danced the mazurka in front of them. 

“What now?” asked Boris, casting his eyes around the centrifuge of the room, looking for another test of manhood to add to his collection. 

“A staring contest,” said Vladimir, placing his hands unevenly on the pallet. 

“A what?” asked Boris, squinting at his companion through one eye. 

“You heard me,” said Vladimir. “Or are you not man enough to look another man in the eyes?”

“I am plenty man,” said Boris, placing his own hands on the pallet and bending deeply into the gaze of his friend. 

Ten minutes passed like this, until Boris found his hands were going numb. 

“You know you have a freckle in your eye,” Vladimir said. 

“I did not know that,” said Boris. “What does it look like?”

Vladimir leaned closer, staring at the brown fleck in a sea of blue filament. The closer he looked the more he saw. A forest made way for individual trees. A beaver dammed a gurgling stream where a silver fish picked and blew water at a small pebble on which a vein of moss stretched itself. 

“Come now, Vovchik, what do you see?” Boris pleaded, but Vladimir couldn’t find the words to explain to his friend all the world that he had discovered in the freckle nesting in his iris. Had it been here this whole time, and if so, could it be that he was the first to see it? Vladimir felt a sudden urge to hoard this new treasure for himself, to keep it a secret destination only he had the breadcrumbs to rediscover. 

“Oh, it is nothing,” Vladimir said, rising from the table. “You and your silly games. To the bathhouse with you.” 

Boris cocked his head sadly at the sweat wrinkled back of Vladimir’s shirt as he followed the pendulum of his legs out of the room, pausing to bounce off the door frame. Reaching into his vest pocket, he held up the patinated surface of his pocket watch hoping to catch a glimpse of this freckle, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t manage to focus his eyes past the scratches in the brass long enough to see what had come so easily to another man.