Good Will Come From the Sea by Christos Ikonomou

Author:Christos Ikonomou [Ikonomou, Christos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2019-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Our island is expanding. Last year, after the series of earthquakes started up, Germans and Swiss came from the University of Hamburg and the Swiss Institute of Technology and installed seismographs and special GPS machines up on the mountain, in Doors and around the lakes and apparently discovered that the island, which is hollow, is moving in three different directions at a speed of 70 millimeters a year: toward the northwest, the northeast and the southeast. They also discovered that it isn’t moving only horizontally but vertically as well – in Doors, along the edge of the largest plate, the activity of the magma under the surface is pushing the land up about three centimeters a year. They even found that there had been about two hundred earthquakes in a single year, most under four on the Richter scale, and that large quantities of radon are escaping from the trench that opened last winter, over in Mougkros, and that the island is ringed by three underground volcanoes in addition to Kamenes – two between Moray Bay and Murderess and one behind Barbarian Isle.

Today my father is all mixed up again. That’s how it’s been going these days, one day he’s pretty bad, the next he’s even worse. He woke me up before dawn to tell me to go into town and buy a radon meter. A radon meter, sure. Fine, I said, but why go all the way into town? Anna has stuff like that at the mini-market, I’ll bring you one when I go for cigarettes. I mean, I shouldn’t say stuff like that, because he realizes I’m making fun of him and he gets upset and looks at me with eyes brimming with tears, but sometimes my frustration gets the better of me. He says we need to measure the radon levels in the house and take the necessary steps to protect ourselves, the situation has gotten dangerous – we’re talking radon here, it’s no laughing matter. Twenty thousand people die every year in America from radon poisoning, and just as many in Europe.

He woke me up at six to tell me this. We fought, we shouted, I tried being harsh, I tried being gentle, but it was all wasted effort.

Bring me some clothes so I can get dressed and I’ll go myself, he says. I want my striped shirt and khaki shots. No way I’m wearing long pants, it’s too hot.

Shots, I say, and give him a good look. You want to wear shots.

Definitely, he says. The khaki ones, with the big pockets.

At some point I thought I about calling Pothitos, but I thought better of it, what could I say and how could he help? Ioanna, dear, I’m a neurologist – as for matters of radon and other radioactive materials you’ll have to call over to the research foundation, or the Committee on Nuclear Energy. That’s what he’ll say, for sure, and I’ll just laugh. And my father will hear from his room and bow his head and get all teary again.

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