{"id":264139,"date":"2026-07-15T01:54:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/island-of-ghosts-and-dreams-christopher-cosmos\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T01:54:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:54:59","slug":"island-of-ghosts-and-dreams-christopher-cosmos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/island-of-ghosts-and-dreams-christopher-cosmos\/","title":{"rendered":"Island Of Ghosts And Dreams – Christopher Cosmos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cYou heard my son. You know who she married.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s your final answer?\u201d He doesn\u2019t 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. \u201cWould you like the pistol or the dagger?\u201d In response, Nikos Varalakis speaks his final words. \u201cMay the Germans kill you all,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

His body begins to plummet. Down, down. He sails through night and darkness, just the same as his son did, until there\u2019s another thud as he lands on the rocks that have already broken one body, and now they break another, too. There\u2019s silence. For a moment, there\u2019s nothing but silence. Anastasios turns to me. \u201cEfcharisto,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s doing wonderful,\u201d I tell him. \u201cEfcharisto,\u201d he says, too, and I can feel him smile. \u201cShe is wonderful.\u201d \u201cShe is, isn\u2019t she?\u201d \u201cShe\u2019ll be the best mother.\u201d \u201cNai.\u201d \u201cSo stay alive, so that you see it.\u201d \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d \u201cNo flying too close to the sun, like your namesake.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s just a story.\u201d \u201cAnd what are stories?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know. What are they?\u201d \u201cA future that\u2019s already happened.\u201d He looks back at me, then nods, understanding. \u201cShe goes to Chania to see the doctor tomorrow,\u201d he says, as he moves away and smiles even wider now.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell her I\u2019ll see her tomorrow night, and will be in Elaionas waiting when she gets back.\u201d I look at the joy that\u2019s there in his face, the anticipation. It\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s so beautiful, and so are they. \u201cOf course,\u201d I tell him. \u201cOf course.\u201d OceanofPDF.com Demetrios comes back with us to the village, but he leaves again before the sun comes up.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m the only British soldier that\u2019s left. I\u2019m the only one from my entire company that\u2019s 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\u2019s still safe and free, and we\u2019ve stayed behind to fight the Germans to give them time. We\u2019ve done that now; we\u2019ve fought the Germans that march south, and delayed them, so it\u2019s our turn to try to get to Athens.<\/p>\n

As I rise from the ground where I\u2019ve been thrown by the force of the explosions, that\u2019s the only thought I have, the only one that\u2019s 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\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve 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\u2019t trip at all, and it was more than that.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s blood on his shirt, near his stomach. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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