As it happens for the last thirty years, every summer there is at least one out-of-control fire in Greece and the government has little idea of what is going on.
The wildfires broke out across Greece, and especially the Attica region, last Friday night. On Saturday we were awoken to a red-grey sky. We could see the fire coming closer, ashes were falling from the sky, it was getting darker and harder to breathe. Moreover, the usual craze on TV was anything but helpful.
The fire was coming too close, too fast. We were ordered to leave our houses. There was no time to pack or take anything with us. I only managed to change from my pyjamas to a pair of jeans and put on my shoes, grab my two already packed bags – since I’ve only arrived from London the night before and hadn’t unpacked – and run towards the screaming people (hard to miss).
Our flight is delayed. Big surprise. I have yet to see a plane leaving on time. And I’ve been travelling since I was 3 months old. No one has the slightest idea when the plane will be ready so they move us from waiting area to waiting area. Little kids are screaming. Apparently, their toys look like terrorist weapons and the security staff won’t let them take them on board. Yes, we have all heard the stories of evil children hijacking planes and force the pilots at water-pistol-point to redirect the plane to Disneyland. I bet they have conspired with Goofy and Donald Duck to take over the world. I can do more damage with my shoe-heels, than those children with their plastic toys, but I’m not about to share that information with the airport security.
I buy chocolates for my family while we are waiting. I always get them chocolates or sweets. Sometimes I even refrain from eating them on the way and actually give them to them… Oh well. They always told us it’s the intention that matters…
Underwater light falls like a feather; the sun-rays drip and spill all around.
The sun’s turning orange and crimson, burning the sky with the last of its light, before slowly fading to the infinite night.
She is white like porcelain with green/blue/purple eyelids. She has fallen asleep, naked on the sand.
We’ve been running all day. Underneath the sea-waters. It’s alright, she said. You can breathe. We are mermaids. We can reach farther and farther, with figures ever-stretching, ever-reaching and minds ever-wondering, ever-searching.
Just breathe.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Now she’s lying next to red poppies and golden gravel. I kiss her lips and pay her in sea-shells and summer berries. I have to leave before she wakes up and swallows me whole, with her red-coral-hands and carnivorous starfish eyes.
Underneath the midnight blue sky, her eyes are flickering, glistening, dripping salty pearls. She’s frail, like wings of a butterfly; parched for colours, for rainbows, for stars undead. Standing in the middle of the rainstorm she is calling to the moon, the sky, the water nymphs.
She wants to be a fairytale. White like snow, red locks of hair like flames, and ruby lips like a blood rose, like the poisonous apple. A butterfly-like girl with a swan neck and a silky purple dress, long enough to fit the moon.
Today is another of the grey days. The slow ones. The ones with a lot of background noise and summer rain. With a kind of warm embrace, yet almost suffocating.
The sky is full of smoke from burnt dreams and tomorrows that will never be. There are ashes in her eyes and a burning sun-star in the place of her heart. She looks serene, but her reflection reveals the sorrow curved scars and the ghosts that haunt her fragile figure. Her frozen breath leaves a cloud over the mirror. She can feel the earth move, she can feel the sharp edges of the world and the desperation of the sun. She can feel a disarray of sunrays slashing her skin; and that ever-consuming, ever-burning and so deeply embedded inside of her, that incessant yearning for another’s embrace.
Today we saved a butterfly and painted glitter flowers with tiny pollen flakes. This is another faerie dream that has sprung out of a rift in nightmares. And I think I was crying in a dream, but I don’t remember what you looked like.
All I can see now is tiny star-shaped flowers sprinkled with fairy dust. I see kaleidoscopes twisting, swirling and disappearing like rainbows on a cloudy sky.
The sun hasn’t set for days. I can’t seem to stop running. Chasing light gleams and sea-songs. Almost like a child.
Almost. Because deep down I know the truth. I know the sun will set. I know it would have to die. I know Hades would climb up from the depths of the earth and he would drag me down to the mouldy darkness. Always. He always comes and I always fall.
