After the Effort
The horrified face was almost covered. Dishevelled hair, ripped
shirt, bruised flesh. They gave him back the leather belt,
the wristwatch, and the black comb left on the long table. He
took them. He didn’t know what to put on first, his watch,
his belt? Where would he place his comb? He looked at
his ID papers, “Lucas” it said. “Lucas,” he said to himself.
he didn’t raise his eyes; he put on the watch with slow haste
(The table was the reason, such empty, and dark as it was
and with a scratched corner), he put his belt on and tied it.
He was still tightening it when he walked to the hallway; the
old bathrooms stunk, the pipes dripped, the boy at the cafe
was collecting the bottles and the guards were talking
through the skylight. “Lucas, Lucas” he repeated as if
talking to a foreigner, in a foreign language. The evening
had arrived. The streetlights and the lights of the Museum
were just turned on.
Manolis Aligizakis 