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Mr Stratis Thalassinos Describes a Man I But what happened to this man? All afternoon (yesterday and day before yesterday and today) he’s been sitting with eyes fixated on the flame he stumbled on me in the night as he descended the stairs and said to me: ‘The body dies the water clouds the soul hesitates and the wind forgets, always forgets but the flame never changes.’ He even said to me: ‘You know I love a woman who is gone perhaps to the underworld this isn’t the reason that I am so destitute I try to hang onto this flame because it never changes.’ He then narrated the story of his life.
“How big is the issue?” “As big as I want to make it,” Frankie said, “Just tell me how many you’d like.” “Okay then, let’s say half a million to three quarters?” “You got them. Think it over, decide on the number, and talk to the office tomorrow. I’ll put the word in for you.” “Thanks a lot, Frankie.” “Have a good walk, Eteo. You too, Ariana.” They shook hands again, and Frankie strode off in the direction of Ambleside. “That was one of the biggest movers and shakers on the Vancouver Stock Exchange.” Eteo said to Ariana as they started toward 22nd street, “and a very good man too. He has a knack for anticipating the trends in the market and making the right moves ahead of time. He’s always been ahead of the curve, and he’s made big bucks, as you can imagine. I admire his personality, his charisma, as much as I do his success. If anyone ever deserved to get rich, it’s Frankie.” Ariana took his hand and they walked along the beautiful seawall. Light waves splashed against the rocks, creating a heavenly music only expert ears were tuned to, the ears of people who paid attention to everything in their environment. Most people were too preoccupied with themselves and rarely allowed the fine details of the world around them to disturb their self-regard. Suddenly a group of seagulls began their strange raucous cawing, fighting over a big starfish that hung from the beak of one of them while two others chased it as if demanding to slice the thing into pieces they could all share. Since they didn’t have forks and knives, they could only chase after their lucky colleague, diving and turning in every possible direction as the three gulls painted the horizon with a mixture of shapes, circles, lines, and contours even the most gifted painter could scarcely have recreated. Eteo and Ariana stopped for a while and followed the gulls with their eyes until they had flown too far away to be visible anymore. At the 22nd Street dock, they walked as usual right out to the end. The view, deeply familiar yet fresh every time, spread itself out before them. They gazed at the small boats speeding across the waves…
MY LOVE FOR THE HOMELAND It isn’t a migrating bird that daily flits by, tearing the clouds as it flies in the wind. It’s neither ivy engulfing the rock with its branches nor is it the lightning that flashes and fades. It isn’t the sea that heedless of earthquake roars for you, my homeland, but your destruction I feel in my viscera
Together, they buried the bay colt where he lay. They dug a shallow pit in the bed of the coulee and then covered it with stones that they collected from the hillside. The easy thing would have been to let nature take care of the corpse, but burying the foal was the right thing to do. That night, they took turns standing guard over the horses as their shadows moved gently in the paddocks surrounding the barn. All was well. By now the big cat would be long gone . . . maybe . . . or maybe not. It was just after dinner on the second night since the crazed cat had raided the ranch that Joel knew something was wrong. Buddy, who usually satisfied himself by sleeping in the cool breeze at the back door, was at Joel’s feet in the kitchen. Quietly walking to the kitchen window, Joel scanned the meadows. There it was, slinking silently along the tall grass in the shadows of the trees. It was still daylight and it was headed right for the barn. The wind was blowing from the opposite direction so the horses hadn’t caught scent of the big cat yet. When they would, all hell would break loose, and there wouldn’t be a fence strong enough to keep them in. For a moment, he felt bad for the cougar: something was obviously so wrong that it had become desperate to risk hunting domesticated animals in a ranch yard. Wild game was not fenced in and as available as his horses, but any cougar should be able to catch enough small game to get by at this time of year. As the cat slinked through the shadows, Joel could see that it was not healthy. It was long and desperately lean. Quietly, Joel moved across the kitchen floor to retrieve the rifle from the storage cupboard. Any unexpected noise would spook the cat. Back at the open kitchen window, he hesitated for a moment, not knowing what to do about the screen on the window. If he tried to take the screen off, the cat would hear him and retreat to a safer hiding place and wait for darkness to fall. If he shot through the screen, it might impact the trajectory of his bullet and perhaps he would miss, but he had no choice.
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 