Fifth man

Dices rolled and coffee stood on the corner of the table. Ander looked at the face of his opponent, where he could see no trace of any emotions. The man leaned his head to his scar-covered arm, his eyes were focused to rolling dices. As they stopped, he was hesitating for a moment, then rolled the three dices over. Trying to catch three or four sixes, Ander understood and took some coffee.

Music videos came from TV standing on the shelf, videos they had seen over and over.

"Three sixes," said the man and Ander wrote number 18 to paper. His turn to throw.

"Are you coming to play volleyball tomorrow?" he asked. The man shrugged his shoulders.

"I wanted to go to the gym, but if there is a good team, maybe." Silence. Ander wrote down his result. The man took the dices. "No wishes to play with some idiots." Again the dices rolled. The man stood up to pour himself some more coffee. Standing by the cupboard, he looked at Ander, who nodded. Wordless answer to wordless question. The man took a pack of biscuits from upper shelf and brought them to the table. For a moment he was looking at the dices. "Let's finish later. Write in a pair of sixes for me ."

Ander put the dices and the paper away, took two biscuits for coffee and lied down to his bed. His eyes were watching the dancing girls in another lame video, his thoughts were somewhere else, somewhere far away. "When is the birthday of your daughter, Tarmo?" he asked after some time.

The man, who was lying on another bed, lowered his book. "In May."

"She will be three?"

"Yes."

"You miss her so much?"

"Yes."

Ander remembered that little girl, who liked to put her little nose everywhere it didn't belong, and who had the sweetest smile in the world. Ander smiled and looked at Tarmo. It would be really hard to believe, that so big and very serious man could be a father of that kind of a child. Yet there was similarity in their eyes - Ander noticed that when the man had held her daughter in his arms. His eyes were wet then. Never before, during their two years of long friendship, Ander had thought that this man might be so emotional. That moment changed much of his opinions about Tarmo. He had seen Tarmo in many difficult situation, and sensuality seemed to be the last thing to describe that man. But the moment, when father and daughter first met... That made him think how many times he had been wrong about people before.

Knocking. Door opened.

"Come to the kitchen!"

Ander looked at Tarmo. Both stood up. Tarmo was wandering for a second, then shrugged his shoulders and stepped to the corridor. Ander followed him.

There were four man standing in the kitchen. All turned their gaze to the newcomers. The fifth man didn't. The fifth man was lying on the floor. Ander looked at him, then raised his eyes. Tarmo looked at him as well - only a bit longer. Heiki was their friend.

Everybody was quiet. After some minutes Tarmo turned and walked out. Ander was still standing, and sighed.

He had already known that Heiki had had problems sometimes. He knew that Heiki had used drugs. More than once he had had to drag his friend to bed. Couple of times he had even fought with his friend - only when Heiki was under drugs. Heiki understood, all his blue eyes and one broken tooth were forgiven later. But Ander didn't know that Heiki had so big problems.

Once more he looked at Heiki who was lying on the floor; we watched the blood around him; watched the knife in his neck. Then he went back to room, where Tarmo was sitting by the table. Chessboard was set. "You start!"

Ander started with knight.

W. Hocares