Methodical He kept his dreams ambitiously hidden in his heart he placed hope in monotony in a separate crystalline vase and at the time of the shortest shadows he walked to the shore to breathed in all he could of the endless blue and after on his irises he painted the beautiful little cove the houses, the gleaming, whitewashed chapel he blessed them all with the aroma of oregano he changed his clothes and tightly in his palm, he kept a shiny coin for the lone ferryman who would take him across. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750
He sat on the stool by the front yard; his hands, so clumsy, had already overtaken us “someday they will demolish the house” he says to me “and they’ll discover it.” And every so often, at the far end of the room, someone wrapped a bed-sheet around himself; it was the time he escaped until the bed-sheet fell empty on the floor and we had a friend forever. In the stations the immigrants were lined and, hiding inside their their overcoats, they waited for the voyage like a dog on its death bed. And uncle Elias, our rich relative, years after his death, still stood on the sidewalk; however he didn’t turn to look at us, “uncle” I said “since you knew, why you came back?”, “I can’t fall asleep” he says to me “I still have to lose some more.” I tried to leave but I met the deaf boy on the side street; he was leaning on the wall and he was crying and now there was a small lit chapel on the wall while snow fell outside and passersby drowned in their words.
heat of friction on his backside, and his spine raked over the door jamb. He tried to raise up, but they jerked him backward down the step and onto the ground. The clubbing began. He wrapped his arms around his head and tucked into a ball.Two of them straightened his body by pulling his hands and feet while the biggest man alternated kicks with blows from a length of wood. The clubs and boots battered his arms and legs, his torso, his shoulders. The pain was like fire on his skin. The ache went to the center of his bones. They let him go, then knocked him off his feet when he got up, laughing at his contortions when he twisted and thrashed to evade their clubs.They were killing him, he thought.He was going to die. Suddenly, the big man was on his back and Engine Fred was on top of him with a forearm bearing down on his windpipe. Poodie sat up and saw the other two running down the lane. His head throbbed. Three more hobos came down along the path from the jungle. The man on the ground got an arm free, knocked Engine Fred off balance and was up and running away. He disappeared into the orchard, headed toward the river. Two of the hobos ran after him, but came back shaking their heads. It all happened in the space of a few minutes. The Thorps slept through it, but Engine Fred told Poodie that he heard a scream. Poodie didn’t know that he was capable of screaming. Dan Thorp called the police the next morning. By then, the hobos had hopped a freight. Poodie could not identify the thugs. The bruises on his face and body took weeks to heal. Thorp put a lock on the cabin door. The attack was the worst thing that had happened to Poodie since his mother died. He lived it over in his dreams night after night for months. Years later, he still awakened in fear that the men would come back. Alice Moore looked up to see Poodie James’s face floating just above surface of the checkout desk, a stack of books next to it. She had never seen that face without a smile. She looked at the books; Howard Carter’s The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen, three books about whales, a collection of de Maupassant stories.
Manolis Aligizakis 