THE GIFT OF SLEEP All of a sudden my proud silence is teased by the thought that ants never sleep and their sad and Sisyphean wakeup call could follow me even in my slumber, and then I withdraw into the perfume of a box from the Palais Garnier, into the smooth flight between napping and music, or into the coolness from the Bedouins’ pillows and the non-shadows from a high boat, among the fjords heated and extinguished for centuries by the sun protected in silky whiteness, beyond all the pains and beyond the final repentance, in an Edemic garden where the fertility of wilderness is now lying, and keeps reminding the Inuit how non unique his soul is and how I have always dreamt of him in the destiny projected against the waves of the huge crowd in Mecca, Oh God, all these are getting petrified in Veronica’s veil, a little statue from a Bosnian village often swept by the Virgin’s hem.
GRAVITY Sometimes, even this afternoon, gravity – what else could it be? – pulls me up close and calls me as if I were its slave holds me tightly in its fist not to be scattered in nothingness. The bones can’t take it anymore, it plays with them in vain, they weaken under the flesh, and the flesh is weakened as the hearing is, that is also getting weaker. I I will persist as long as I can and I will give myself to its will.
And are they brave enough? The most dangerous place in the world is the centre of one’s self where all the secrets and all the fears lie. I’m prepared to go there even if it shrivels me up like an autumn leaf. That’s what it’s about to me.” On the third day, Ken refused to do what the teacher asked of him. “Show me how to use different materials.” Ken said. “No. You have to follow the rules.” Ken sighed. “Picasso broke all the bloody rules – don’t you understand?” “Oh – and you’re going to break all the rules!” “Absolutely – I’m going to shatter them and then pick up all the pieces and see what happens when you put them back together again differently – but not as ugly as Picasso.” At the end of the class, Ken packed up his books and pencils and left. His formal art education was finished. Ken’s father made inquiries and found a tutor – John Traynor, an Irishman – who gave lessons in his private school. Ken found the lessons, if not exciting, at least enjoyable and interesting. Shortly after Ken’s uncle’s visit, his grandfather, Don Hymie, and grandmother, Victoria, came to stay for several weeks. Victoria was the matriarch of the family and ruled it with the proverbial iron fist. She was a tiny woman with a curved back, a stooped gait and hair that reached the floor when she let it down. Ken loved to brush his grandmother’s hair with her silver-backed tortoiseshell brush. Victoria, in turn, enjoyed nothing more than having her hair combed and the two became friends. Ken was the only one in the family who she never tried to terrorize. She called him a clown. “Tu es un Paeaso.” But the word had deeper textures than merely clown. It embodied the village idiot, the King’s fool and the savant. Ken also developed a strong relationship with his grandfather, whose passion was his plants and his orchards. He derived enormous pleasure from grafting fruit trees and he was an avid historian and linguist. When he came to visit, he told Ken, “I am going to be your history teacher.” Every day Ken and Don Hymie walked to the beach to have lunch with Francisco. Class distinctions meant nothing to Don Hymie and that alone was enough to command Ken’s love and respect. At low tide, they would wade out and hunt for shrimps, which they would quickly throw into a pot of boiling water and eat by the handful, accompanied by large pitchers of beer. While they ate bread and shrimp and drank beer, Don Hymie told stories of his family history dating back for hundreds and hundreds of years. As summer drew to a close that year, his father asked him one day – as was his custom – what he wanted for his birthday.
Manolis Aligizakis 