September 1. My Olive tree nights.

And thus september begins on a Greek island. No stories are created here, it is only to forget and to leave behind why I am here. Successfully. A new fresh injection of lonelyness from an almost clean syringe nothing to worry about and absorbed swiftly by my warm blood. Does not our goals appear so much clearer when we realize how unique and unsupported we are in achieving it? Yes, it helps, my goal appears clearer and without distraction. The columns of cold air that stand around it are not polluted by warm whispering voices from human mouths trying to take it back into their order. Yet I don't want to discomfort them.

The internet doesn't work here. What is this communication thing anyway. Why not just produce dead letters and laugh about it? An attire of dead letters woven around our shivering bodies. We do away with praise and prices, we do away with all that once could have been important for us, and here we stand, merrily disattached to what our tradition calls the ego and its achievements, here we stand smiling a smile that make so many aggressive and comforts so few, but we have our fans. It's always about the letter and its power to convey a meaning that doesn't wear out so quickly. A return to the ballad, might the knower say, a return to the voice of anonymity attempted but never to be achieved. I want to sing a ballad to mankind from a perspective merrily disattached and I want the right people around me. O grey flower of blatant arrogance, it is alone that you will end.

I walk the road up the hills and sleep under an olive tree, awaiting the divine sunrise over the Aegean bay of Alonissos. It's a good night and the air is fresh, how dearly fresh and pure.

August 29. Young woman and the sea.

A short retreat is what I need. I am working on a perfect spot. A Greek island, the quietest of the Sporades, and I hope to catch up with my writing. It's just a feeling of being "on schedule" and I won't bother you with it. If there is something interesting to say I'll say it. But since it has become too much of a play, there might lay a virtue in silence today. A silence taught by the pretty face of nature surrounding us. A silence that doesn't lull your mind to sleep but keeps her awake as a pair of eyes on a sunny afternoon, with their lids tense.

We do nothing. I write many hours. I would have loved to explore the island, go on a tour, feel the wind in my hair, that sweet symbol of freedom. But there is something deathlike in the air; nobody can do anything about it.

The young woman and the sea.

She takes a few steps into the water and we see her standing there, long curly hairs reach her shoulders, playing gently in the breeze that comes from behind the island. We think she is contemplating the sea and it seems to us some sort of communication is taking place between the young woman and the sea, some invisible exchange of thought that make us step back in reverence. All of a sudden she disappears into the waves and a short moment later we see her black hair that is wet and straight now moving off the coast. The young woman stays in the water for a long time and we we cannot help feeling a slight shiver traveling over our back when we think of how her back must be cold and her skin wrinkly. But even from a distance we can see her smile and then, as sudden as she went into the water, she comes back. We drape a towel around her shoulders and see how she smiles in a way only the sea can teach us.

August 28. The young sailor boy.

And the blue water around the island rippled and glistened and sighed with her low gulping voice. The hot afternoon sun draws sharp shadows of the telephone lines under the balcony. A future threw a shadow back upon this moment, a future envisioned and hold dear. But the moment is now and that future far away. My soul should glisten and ripple like the white water in the wake of the motorboat first, there is so much to be done for this island to turn into a dream. We swim the quiet sea, we walk on the winding asphalt and eat in a taverna with a wonderful view. I order a plate of fried anchovies and a Greek salad. The sun sets earlier than I thought and the night is silent. Roaring car engines contrast the quietness of the islands and make me more aware of it. The island has taken me to-day, and I don't write, like I do to-morrow.

And now something more Gargantuan. Where have the days gone, you sculptured mariner, when the sea was wild and could swallow a ship, the days when despair was a good seaman's right and you could sail beyond the horizon on a flat globus?

- Ay ay, young sailor boy, you have read too much poetry you have. Now look at you, all pale, the letters injected a false romanticism under your skin. Times have ne'er been like that. Wild as the sea, o yes, and in desperation whole fleets went to the bottom, and we've known the unknown too, far beyond the horizon, my boy.

- Will I ever sail a wild sea then, will I?

That you will, for sure. Aren't you mortal a being?

- Yes, of course, and so?

There is your horizon, unknown what awaits you beyond that horizon, and as bold as may your frenzy fantasies be.

- But that is not what I mean...

It is all what you get, boy, now listen. The times have never gone; wild seas and despair have always been there. You will encounter all the wild seas you are looking for, boy, all the seas you CAN be looking for.

- But I admire your sculptured face old mariner, I love your wild grey beard I do, and the nose that's like an eagle's beak, so strong. Have you seen your lips, those impressive furrows, and the maculae, and those spots on your cheeks, that ugly scar that seems to be stiched by a crab. I can never become like that. How could I ever be satisfied with death and the one-way wildwater ramp sweeping me into her unknown lap? I want more!

Why not do like everbody else and go to the movies? That is what you should do boy, go to the movies. The are SPECIALIZED in cases like you.

- Is that so, you old sculptured mariner. Easily you can talk. After all, you carry life on your face. It lives right there in the carves and scarred furrows of your face. But look at me. My skin is soft, and immaculate, so where is the life? I am entitled to it, am I not?

O please, boy, you know. Such is the order of things. Either you go to the movies or take an axe and slay me.

- The order of things. Can this be resolved? [The boy picks up an axe and cuts his finger] Ouch! I'm bleeding. Look what you've done.

[The sculptured mariner takes the axe away from him and puts a cottton plaster on the wound.]

This will heal quickly. It is a sharp incision, the skin will grow together easily.

- Will it leave a scar?

Don't you worry, boy -

[The sculptured mariner puts away the axe and takes the boy by his hand.]

Tonight's movie is about a young skipper who sails all the way to Greece by himself, enduring dangerous cliffs and barbarous sharks...

August 27. Calmness.

We inspire each other. At five am we get up and take a taxi first, then a bus, then a highspeed ferry that takes us to an island by surprise. What a power is in the water spouting in the wake of the vessel, the visible effect of the mighty blades' whirl. I observe this for a while, the splashing whitewater and thick diesel fumes dissolving above it, how pure does my own mind appear from within that heavy cloud of noise and stench.

It is only when we disembark that I learn its name: Alonissos, the smallest of the tree north Sporades islands. It is beautiful here, quiet, a place for peace. A taxi takes us about ten kilometers up the winding road to a village where they rent rooms. Sea and people breath calmness here. They say there are dolphins since the island is part of a Marine Preservation Park. We sleep for some hours, then go for a swim. The text cannot breath the same calmness as the sea does anyway.