METANOIA

DOUBLE FOURS

The party continued for a few more hours with people catching up and exchanging stories. The main group somewhat re-established itself a little past midnight. A large group of people sat in the backyard, eating and drinking for another good hour before the trend to depart became apparent. From then on, the party became progressively quieter.

It was Silas' turn to get off his chair and move across the ring of friends to sit next to Lisa. The two of them had played backgammon for years after Silas had taught her how to play. This time, Lisa had publicly challenged him to a game of backgammon on Facebook. She badly wanted to beat Silas in a game.

Silas said, "So, yeah, you have a board?"

Lisa was excited immediately, "Fuck yeah, and I'm going to whoop your ass."

Silas said, "You're on."

Misha turned to Lisa and Silas, "You two losers should sit at the children's table and watch me play."

Anda said, "No way, José, bring it. I'll play the winner."

The four of them stepped inside the house. Pete was making arrangements with Nick, who wanted to leave in a bit, but Pete wanted to stay with the other two guys for the night, and they were working out the logistics. He didn't have a ride back to Nick's parents' house, nor did he have a place to crash that night, which concerned Nick. Pete, on the other hand, pointed out that the same conditions applied to Misha and Silas, and eventually Nick caved in.

Lisa, Anda, Silas and Misha searched the house for the backgammon board. When they found it, the board was significantly smaller than Silas had expected and magnetic! He hadn't seen a magnetic board in ages and was delighted with it.

Silas had played backgammon in some of the most eccentric locations in the past. He played some of his more memorable games on magnetic boards, out in the middle of the sea, underwater, while diving, and on a train ride from Germany to London. He once played a game on a ski lift in Switzerland and, heck; he even played a game while he was parasailing.

Needless to say, Silas was an experienced player, even by Middle Eastern standards. He did not count pieces and knew all of the opening moves, and played uncharacteristically aggressively. Lisa had learned the game from him, and Silas had won every single game they had played, ruthlessly.

He rolled the first die.

Double fours.

If you asked her, Lisa would claim she had beaten Silas once in the past, but your author thinks that is a truckload of crap.

Silas rolled another pair of double four. Misha was sitting on the couch, making fun of the two and the way they played. He repeated this on almost every roll of the dice until Anda decided to intervene.

Anda asked him, "So, how is New York?"

Misha said, "You two should come visit me. I have a nice apartment in the East Village. It is a lively and colorful place."

Anda was distracted by another roll of double fours, "Sure! What's your apartment like? Is it nice?"

Misha said playfully, "Did I not just say it was nice? Silas, where did we find these losers?"

Anda laughed at her mistake.

Silas barged in to save her, "He has this really fucking cool plaque on his wall that says:

"In 1897

on this site

nothing happened."

Misha was about to say something but stopped himself because Anda's expression was very quizzical.