The Archeologist and Selected Sea Stories by Andreas Karkavitsas

Author:Andreas Karkavitsas [Karkavitsas, Andreas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

6.

When the Archeologist awoke in the morning, he felt as if he had aged ten years. He lacked the strength to get out of bed. No—it wasn’t that he lacked the strength but that he found it entirely unnecessary. Just what did he have to do? Read? His books held no appeal. Work? No! It would be some time before he set foot back on the land. That vision from yesterday evening had iced over his enthusiasm. So he stayed lying in bed, motionless and eyes wide open as if he had been hypnotized. The morning light poured lifelessly in through the window and accentuated the artifacts, filthy like cleaning rags. Outside, not a single voice or noise could be heard. Only the murmuring of the spring carried in, and it made him feel faint. It wasn’t water but his heart’s own blood that flowed from the spring’s spout.

How truly unpleasant the house is like this! In the past, the moment he opened his eyes he would hear the light footsteps of Mrs. Panoria—her moving about here and there, her voice. She would cry “Pish! . . .” at the fowl, and they would all come running from the four corners of the yard, flapping their wings and clucking as if to shout: “We’re here!” “Quack quack quack!” the ducks would squawk, wobbling their chubby bodies atop their legs as if to command: “Nobody get near our food!” But many of them would get all jumbled up with each other and fall backward like sacks of cheese. “Gobble gobble gobble!” the turkeys would majestically advance, strutting their combs and clearly intent on trampling everything in their path. “Honk honk honk!” the geese would mindlessly hiss, waving their beaks at the distance even though food was lying at their feet. “Cheep cheep cheep!” the chicks would chirp as they begged for a bit of feed, some leftover from the big ones’ gluttony. And finally, with a “Crow crow crow!” the rooster would drown out the others as he stomped—the rooster, that buccaneer and subduer of the entire neighborhood. He was dignified in every respect: his stance, his step, his crow, his eyes. He was the same even when it came to food. He displayed neither hunger nor ravenousness. “Tap tap tap!” he would peck at the corn, then lift his head and impose order upon his subordinates. If ever he spied a male seizing the females’ fodder, he would rain down on him like a cloudburst, and the wrongdoer would change course to avoid suffering his pitiless beak. Quite often he liked to fan out one of his wings and escort his beloved about, this reckless tough guy and drunken bully of the birds. And Mrs. Panoria, his darling mother, would stand amid her hungering populace and scatter food gladly, kind and cheerful like Lady Nature who scatters her boons for all. Who knows what they will do now? In what state of impatience will they find themselves when they realize

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