excerpt
. . . Stathis, Stathis, however did you manage it? Everything is
going superbly, just as your fine lad said. It is almost as if all
this never . . .
A bolt of energy struck through him. Exercise. But at this intersection
of hour and mood? To him, morning and exercise are related.
Exercise collided with now. The commitment of discipline must not
loosen, derange, or unfasten him. As if on command, he rose and
stood at attention. His body commanded his mind to command it: a
few knee-bends, jumping jacks, and he extended his hands almost
to the walls. Inhaled deep, exhaled slow, his breath became cuprous,
tarnished, an obese air; but he continued, and his lungs butterflied
and collapsed, perhaps in rehearsal for a ritual in which he might
never take part.
There has been no extraordinary exertion, yet the burden of
boredom diminished him to the figure of a junkman’s nag tolling
uphill before the overload of relic erudition. Half of a man knew it
was war; half of a man insisted it wasn’t. In the confusion, it was
difficult to discern which entered the theatre of war with a plowshare.
The blunder into the hunt, to discover oneself, was a quarry
that dogs followed in all directions of the cosmos, dogs which ran
and followed his steps as if ready to bite, to dig deep in his flesh
with their teeth.
He stopped as abruptly as he started and sat on his bed. His
mind flew back to the island.
Manolis Aligizakis 