(Life is Beautiful)
Do you remember when we would stand upon the roof in the heat of summer and talk of nonsense plans that we would one day unravel upon the city below? Grand ideas of business and thievery that would drown us in money and give our grandchildren riches that they could never deserve.
An olive plantation in the northern hills, grappa sold without knowledge of the taxman, we would become kings of this land, our names holding more power than a clenched fist ever could.
We were young then, drinking atop the roof of a sprawling skyline while kicking empty bottles out into the ocean; like football stars we were, so excited by life that the rhythm of movement would overtake us and action would run faster than thought.
With unbreakable stride we marched through Athens, led by our chests and the beating hearts that thumped within. They would beat proudly, louder than any idiot that lived in this city, louder than even the drums of our ancestors or the gods before them. We walked on threads of gold that grew outward and boundless, whereas those around us still seemed not to know that cotton could be spun.
Starvos, the paper seller; Petrakis, a fisherman; they were friends, but would be lost when we talked of things like the future; they were fools, too set in the ways of how a life should be lived. Birth, marriage, death, all these just a poverty that we give to ourselves, pftha! Is that a way to live? Life is a bull, a dumb bull of singular direction that must be gripped and thrown to the ground. It has horns so it must be thrown, it has a neck so it must be stepped upon. Men like Starvos would step out of the way to let this bull pass by and live unharmed, but we would laugh of this.
In our youth we would stand firm as the bull struck us, rolling with the force, using its strength as our own. We would ride off into the victorious sunset where the sea met the sky and all things around us united.
That is what we did in our youth. We lived! We walked without fear.
You said to me once that the horizon could bear no sight unseen, and beyond it we only appear again. What did you mean by that? What clarity did you see that even I, your rambling ally, could not?
I still think of you talking of these fancies when the warm gale sweeps upward from the Psyttaleia across the harbour, a wind as fresh as Charon, bringing only his regards.
Good will come from the sea.
We said this again and again, good will come from the sea. If I were to ever get a tattoo it would be of this; an expanse of nothing that gives no care to us, gives no care of anyone.
An expanse of the unified untameable, gifting us, gifting you and I something? Ha! No, no good can come of nothing.
What churning, bottomless beast would give us something other than a place to die? Is it worth me asking this?
Your father, a sailor, died upon the ocean and mine disappeared beyond it.
Ftou, I may have been living in a pot for too long. When did I lose hope? How did I become so thrown by the loss of something that I should care what happened to the past.
With failing eyesight we both watched as time passed us by so clearly. Much like the shoulder of a polluted river we became caught by the recycling current and then grew used to the stagnant existence that we once so raged against. You were like a plastic bag torn open upon the moss covered rocks, strewn amongst the eddying tide, clinging on to what was safe. When did we grow apart so? When did we lose that fire that broiled our bellies and became the embers of far off bonfires, dotting the valley of our plans?
A bud grows, as does a weed. Is it the gardener’s fault to blindly water something that only wishes to entrench its roots? I no longer know.
I blame our wallow upon the shifting tide.
That bastard sea of which good may never come, Bah! It pulls away from the land and so too you, maybe you were sick of all that childish talk of dreaming, but you pulled away from me. You pulled away from the youthful fancy of a friendship that only sought to conquer, that sought to take more than we could ever hold with our hands.
Do you remember the callouses we built upon our palms in the Ptolemaida? We searched for riches underground and placed them in hidden pockets to take as our own, not caring about being caught or ever afraid of the affluence held by one who stands only in the sun. Was it this work that broke you?
Have you ever seen such an orange sky?
No orchestra or poet could capture the enormity of an Athenian sunset. The stillness, that acts a prelude to the wind, stirs in our bones as the lingering clouds upon the horizon take on notes of clarity. Every line darkens within these moments of finality: today is dead, long live the future!
I wish I could live within these sunsets, and in a way I do. We all live in moments like these, but to notice them…ha!
Thinking, on warm nights like this where the wind kicks and swirls without meaning, I can still smell the salt air that surrounded us as we would talk of the madness of being directionless. We would yell against the wind and talk of life; nothing to stop for, we could drive on until all borders became meaningless, until distance consumed itself.
The heat of sunbaked concrete still leeches outward into my feet from that summer.
I walk upon this veranda and feel its warmth, a warmth that reminds me of your laugh, your crooked teeth clattering as you smiled and told me I was an idiot. It pours outward from this place and seems to hold the song of memory within each slate, each tile, and I would never wish to destroy this. The night we boxed, the night we counted the wilting leaves in the neighbour’s garden, why did we waste so much time talking?
We’re supposed to be strong, we of this city, we’re supposed to not be bothered by stupid goodbyes that can not be returned.
George, you bastard…
We shall speak again.
Excerpt from a note
Author unknown
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 