The Satrapy How unfortunate, though you are made for great and beautiful deeds your unjust fate always denies you encouragement and success. Worthless habits, pettiness and indifference distracts you. And what a horrible day when you give in (the day you let yourself give in), and you set out on the road to Susa, you approach the monarch Artaxerxes who favours you with a place at his court, and offers you satrapies and such. And you accept them in despair. These things that you don’t want. Your soul craves other things, yearns for other things: the praise of the people and the sophists, that difficult and priceless “Well Done” the Agora, the Theatre, and the Laurels. Will Artaxerxes give you these things? Can your Satrapy provide them? And what sort of life will you live without them?
eating itself—has proved too much for him.” “The poor man. What a horrible thing to happen at a time like this.” Father Costello then remembered the congregation in the church. “Dr Starkey, if you go back out there and try to restore a measure of calm, I shall prepare to celebrate Mass and marry the young couple. They especially will need some encouragement, poor children. I myself must try to make up to them this unfortunate delay in their happy ceremony.” At the end of the ceremony, as the guests moved out of the church to make their way to the house of Michael and Caitlin Carrick, Father Costello and Dr Starkey both returned to the sacristy. Padraig was sitting on the bench, his head in his hands, staring at the floor between his feet. “Are you all right, Padraig?” Dr Starkey asked. Padraig looked up. His face was like a skeleton’s. “So I had another seizure?” he said. “Yes,” Dr Starkey replied. “A bad one. How do you feel?” “Tired. Very, very tired. And my head is throbbing.” Padraig looked up at the old priest who stood tall as a maypole. “Did you say Mass for me, Father Costello?” “I did, Padraig.” “And the wedding?” “It went very well. “Ah, that’s good.” Padraig lowered his black eye-sockets from the tall priest’s face and stared at his own moist, clasped hands. “I never could have done it, you know. I’m glad I asked you to come in my place.” His almost fleshless head jerked round towards Dr Starkey. “I’m so tired, Dr Starkey. I don’t think I’ll go up to the house. Will you apologise for me to Caitlin? And to Michael and the others?” “I will, Padraig,” Dr Starkey promised. “Now you had better get to your room in the rectory. And I’ll stop by later to see you.” “Thank you, Dr Starkey.” Padraig stood unsteadily. “All I want to do now is sleep.” The three men left the church together. A few parishioners who remained in the church, talking in subdued voices, watched them go. Padraig entered the rectory with Father Costello and climbed the stairs to his room. There he rolled over on to his side on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
…citizens as their wish and the iron fist of the church who keep the minds and emotions of people under their control,” he said looking deep in Magda’s eyes who showed her understanding as she nodded her head and smiled at his comments. “The one you’d have a hard time even talking about is the power of the church over the lives of the people because it has been so much entrenched in their essence as something they have received from their ancestors and as such, they would never think of leaving behind, let alone changing dramatically,” she underlined to Hermes. “Yes, I agree; but what we inherited shouldn’t always be accepted as a given and never evaluated, viewed by today’s standards and beliefs and then accept it or reject it for something better. Think of it, in today’s world, where you can communicate with anyone and in such a short time, when you travel from one end of the Earth to the other within a day, we still believe in such stupid ideas, and anachronistic thoughts.” “True, indeed, Hermes, but…” she added “There shouldn’t be a but, Magda, look, in the old days, during the seventh century BC, the Spartans had a law that forced mothers to go and throw down the Kaiadas all their incomplete children, the malformed, the kids with Down’s syndrome, etc. That was part of our tradition too; however, we today don’t kill the malformed kids or the ones with Down’s syndrome because we must understand that human life is as valuable and indispensable, regardless of what form it might have. Yet, we can’t get rid of the Christian tradition no matter what. Tell me why it is so?” Magda stared into his eyes and noticed the burning fire, which could become a conflagration, a fire she loved to see; a fire she’d agreed with, however, she chose her words very carefully. “I believe what you said, but I also know how deeply entrenched the whole idea of the church and how impossible it would be to effect any change at this time of the nation’s history, especially under the iron fist of the dictators…on the other hand, nothing is impossible when one wants to fight for what one believes in.”
Manolis Aligizakis 