Tzoras jots down the date of the primary school students’ last excursion this year. A week before his son’s University entrance exams. He couldn’t possibly be absent from this critical moment in his son’s life.
He unlocks the top desk drawer and takes out a deck of cards with famous actresses on he’d bought on an educational trip to Thessaloniki. He counts them. Fifty one. One’s missing. Fingers move deep into the drawer, through grade books and the register, under the desk pad. Nowhere.
The bus is crammed; people jostle in the aisle, swinging hither and thither at the driver’s sudden brakes and swerves. A baby howls, an old lady flaps her fan against her flushed face.
Then the bus stops. It takes a while. An armed soldier gets off to inspect the road. Pitch dark. A roar is heard, a gunshot. The second soldier follows suit. He never comes back. The passengers stare out the window and at each other alert. Somebody knocks on the front door. The driver opens and a man, face distorted, reddish saliva dripping down his bloodied teeth – a zombie – bursts in, lunges at whomever he comes across, bites them hard on the neck. Screams and moans fill the bus. The ones that have been bitten become infected and maul the ones sitting next to them until everyone, except for the driver, runs amok, becomes a zombie.
‘Mum! Look! A spider! Kill it!’ Belly still working on my web, I goggle down at the small boy’s pink finger pointing at me like a huge, wriggling worm. Oh, no, I think. I’ ve been spinning this web in a corner of the kitchen ceiling for ages and this little bugger here wants to wipe it out in a flash and, worse, do me in. Why do humans loathe us so much? We never do any harm.
Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou
You know what struck me the most when I saw you lying flat on the hospital bed? I realized I’d never seen you without your impeccable false teeth. You looked older, defenseless, robbed from authority. A catatonic man with cheeks sunken along the gums that framed a wide dark cave of a mouth, a forehead jutting out of the white pillow, wet wisps of hair drowning underneath.
The park is situated on the highest point of the town overlooking the Corinthian Gulf. A multicoloured bed of roses lines one perimeter and tall conifers and fir trees are scattered over the grass. Asphalt paths, edged with wooden benches, lead to the ornamental iron gates located on each side of its four perimeters. A small bridge stretches across a lake hidden by pampas grass and shrubs. The townsfolk, who live in the surrounding high rise apartments, gather in the park to walk, talk and relax. The boys find an empty bench and Artan twists off the caps of two bottles of beer and offers one to Bekim. They take long gulps and wipe their mouths with the sleeves of their work clothes.
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