Somewhere in Russia, other me is shaving his head with his friends, hoisting barrels of rusted ball bearings overhead for sport, loitering in concrete courtyards. Other me doesn’t wear sleeves. In Gorky, he chucks a stone at a stork and feels nothing when it lands twitching at his feet. He makes faces at men who hold hands. His favorite movie is Die Hard, which is called It is Difficult to Die, but Living is More Difficult. Other me has never voted. He lives so cynical he smells like stale candy and stewed cabbage hearts. Other me dances with his elbows at funerals, breaks two liter bottles of beer on his knees, sits on park benches to watch the geese migrate. He wonders where the birds fly without caring where the birds fly. In Moscow, he threatens naked men with knives, teasing death from the cedar walls of a sauna. Other me loves his mother unconditionally, would lay his meager body across the Transsiberian for her, would cut the spleen from his stomach for her. He never misses a meal because it would break her heart. In Leningrad he dresses in furs and fights the wind with his crumbled fists, knowing well the futility of things.