Island Of Ghosts And Dreams – Christopher Cosmos

“You heard my son. You know who she married.” “That’s your final answer?” He doesn’t speak again. He just stands and stares at Anastasios, his eyes burning, or at least trying to, as Anastasios then motions for the men holding Nikos to release him and move away, which they do. “Would you like the pistol or the dagger?” In response, Nikos Varalakis speaks his final words. “May the Germans kill you all,” he says. Then he turns and starts to run, covering the space on the cliff and when he gets to the edge, he launches himself off.

His body begins to plummet. Down, down. He sails through night and darkness, just the same as his son did, until there’s another thud as he lands on the rocks that have already broken one body, and now they break another, too. There’s silence. For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. Anastasios turns to me. “Efcharisto,” he says. I nod. We all stand there, then there are more nods as Demetrios and Giannis go to Anastasios and shake his hand, and I go to Ikaros and embrace him and whisper into his ear.

“She’s doing wonderful,” I tell him. “Efcharisto,” he says, too, and I can feel him smile. “She is wonderful.” “She is, isn’t she?” “She’ll be the best mother.” “Nai.” “So stay alive, so that you see it.” “What do you mean?” “No flying too close to the sun, like your namesake.” “That’s just a story.” “And what are stories?” “I don’t know. What are they?” “A future that’s already happened.” He looks back at me, then nods, understanding. “She goes to Chania to see the doctor tomorrow,” he says, as he moves away and smiles even wider now.

“Tell her I’ll see her tomorrow night, and will be in Elaionas waiting when she gets back.” I look at the joy that’s there in his face, the anticipation. It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful, and so are they. “Of course,” I tell him. “Of course.” OceanofPDF.com Demetrios comes back with us to the village, but he leaves again before the sun comes up.

I raise my eyes and look up towards the bright and fractured light. The explosions have shaken the ground and sky and thrown me from my feet and the place I stood only moments before. I land heavily in the dirt where displaced earth falls around me in uneven and staccato waves. As the churned and burnt soil returns back to where it once rested, I squint through the haze of unnatural precipitation, holding my hand up to shield my view, and this is what I see: the soldiers I travelled with from Thermopylae are all dead, bodies lying between and amongst the rocks of the mountain we’ve defended, and the young Greek resistance fighters we met along the way are in retreat, heading farther up the mountain to run south across the rest of the Attic Peninsula and on towards Athens.

I’m the only British soldier that’s left. I’m the only one from my entire company that’s still alive. The women and children we saved from the orphanage have gone ahead of us, to try to get to Athens, to Piraeus, and the sea, to be able to evacuate to the islands, or Africa, somewhere that’s still safe and free, and we’ve stayed behind to fight the Germans to give them time. We’ve done that now; we’ve fought the Germans that march south, and delayed them, so it’s our turn to try to get to Athens.

As I rise from the ground where I’ve been thrown by the force of the explosions, that’s the only thought I have, the only one that’s still left. Rise. Rise. We have to go. I stand. I wobble on unsteady feet as I look north and west, towards the advancing Germans, coming up the mountain through the swirling storm of dust they’ve created.

Then I turn and begin to run south. My legs work slowly at first, but after a few paces they start to stretch and loosen, and I begin to sprint along with the young Greek fighters. We run to the top of the pass we’ve defended as the air around us explodes with bullets and mortars. The ground shakes even more, and the young, dark- haired, dark-eyed Greek that runs next to me falls. He must have tripped, I think, but when I glance down, I see that he didn’t trip at all, and it was more than that.

There’s blood on his shirt, near his stomach. I’m about to reach down to help him but his friend comes first, the one who used to talk around the campfire in the moments that were silent and full of fear and doubt, and who told me in accented English his name was Costa. So I turn back towards the Germans, instead, and raise my rifle and fire blindly into the dust and swirling wind where I know they march.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: bb0cfda2283c2502
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 8,032,190 bytes (7.66 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 350
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 573.45 minutes
• Total Words: 114,690
• Total Characters: 604,569
• Average Words per Page: 327.69
• Average Characters per Page: 1727.34

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