Marko must have been around ten when someone gave him a Rubik’s Cube as a present. It was the craze of the time. Soon afterwards, a boy his age and upbringing came for a visit. They had known each other since they were four. The puzzle engaged them both, and a bit of competition soon developed. Back then, the Cube was meant for exceptionally bright people, if not outright geniuses, and everyone felt obliged to take a stab at it. When the boys tired of the puzzle, the other boy disappeared for a while, and then joined us with a victorious smile on his face. He had cracked it! Each side of the Cube was in one of the six solid colors, as it was when it was brand new. Marko was crestfallen, of course. All the adults were taken aback, too, for Rubik’s Cube was not a joke. Solving the puzzle put our little guest into a new light, and his parents were not sure how to feel about the surprising turn of events. Only then someone noticed that each component cube, nine of them to a side, was not painted its color but had a paper sticker glued onto it. It was possible to remove the stickers and place them back on in any way one pleased. When the boy’s father, a dear friend of mine, asked him whether this was the secret to his method, the boy swore he had genuinely manipulated the cube. However, he could not explain what he had done. When we shifted the Cube from its pristine state, he could not solve it again. It did not take us long to realize that grilling the boy on his method would only embarrass him even more, and thus we all turned to other things. Predictably, Marko was visibly happier, but he, too, let the other boy be. Later on, when the boys were out of earshot, the adults marveled at the manual dexterity involved in rearranging fifty-four stickers in a minute or two. Anyhow, the only surprising thing about this story is that it came to me today, some fifteen years later. In fact, it was the first thing that came to my mind when I woke up this morning.

Addendum (August 12, 2023)

Having come across this piece of writing entirely by chance, I realized that it was high time to add a few words about this friend of mine and his son. Dragoslav Kožul is my friend’s name, and his son’s name is also Marko. Our two sons were born only a few months apart, both of them in the States. Dragoslav was instrumental in my decision to move to Istria a few years later (“Birth, Death,” December 20, 2001). We met on the peninsula many times after my move, but this has changed the last decade or so (“Friendships Lost,” September 12, 2022). And that is the main reason for adding a few words to this amusing piece, it goes without saying. Alas, friendships lost are one of the greatest puzzles in life!