Eléni’s First Visit - Part 11

This is the eleventh part of the tale. There will be twelve parts unless Goddess Athena necessitates more. All ten previous parts, linked at the bottom through Part 10, are necessary to fully follow this ongoing romance between the real and the possibly real. Each part requires around five minutes of your time. Anthi Psomiadou and R Tsambounieri Talarantas had graciously agreed to appear as fictional characters in this first visit of Eléni to Athens, where she had hoped to speak to Goddess Athena and find the missing Patrick. The story spans her two-week visit to blue-sky-and-seas and white-independence Greece.

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. Christopher Hitchens (I still miss him to no end)

Even the stars are different when in Greece. You look at them and you think of gods and goddesses. The Moon is the Moon; sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, sometimes full of je ne sais quoi. Our three beauties, four if you count Aphrodite, left the restaurant happy. I was happy too, having watched them through my Athena. I can actually say, my Athena. It makes me feel alive again and, unfortunately, weak in the heart. You would think that I had heart problems. I surely do not. It is all on account of my wooden heart resulting from my love for all trees and my proximity to such a goddess as Athena, my love. I can also happily mention that I have not seen any flying roaches. Goddess Athena and Bubo, her owl, have been instrumental in their local disappearance and luckily the place where we reside. We watched Anthi, Eléni and Rigópoula eat and drink and be merry in that restaurant that Athena and I will go to one evening after she decides to appear human because now, when I look at her, I only see the divine, which is as strange as it gets for an atheist.

They took a taxi back to beautiful Rigópoula’s place, Aphrodite the beautiful falcon, accepting to be held by beautiful Anthi whom she loved from the beginning, as if they were meant to be with each other, or it may have been simply love from first sight. It happens to all life forms, little or large, animal or plant. Love survives amid all the pain, suffering and death. Such is the way of the world. The universe is still unknown to dare to propose that it acts according to the same earthly laws. It may, of course, but we have no proof whatsoever, only wishes that some consider to be the truth. Any belief of such magnitude requires evidence. Belief without it is only dogma. Humans have shown repeatedly their love for blind faith as if it was commendable. It is surely not and highly dangerous. Fiction is the only domaine where we can entertain such possibilities. Even my Athena agrees. I love her beyond words and she knows. How could she not?

Our three human beauties were drinking shots of ouzo as Eleonora and Aphrodite our two falcons watched them, perhaps wondering why did they like that sweet-smelling water so much. Eléni had only one shot at first on account of alcohol being the worst carb, but seeing how happy they all were, decided to forget it for one night. She even saw that Anthi wanted her to let go for one night and enjoy life no matter what tomorrow could bring. They were all living for today, in the moment, filled with joy and merriment. They toasted to life, to birds, to trees, and to Goddess Athena who suddenly appeared (the fourth beauty per the subtitle), looking gently at Rigópoula and explaining to her in her mind who she was. Beautiful Rigópoula had tears in her eyes. They all did, even the goddess, even me writing these few sentences; tears of happiness all around. Goddess Athena was both alive and real, real and alive, perhaps synonyms but not quite.

They talked about love. What other fascinating subject is there, except perhaps astronomy, to talk about when both beauty and alcohol coalesce with the divine. Goddess Athena had a few shots herself, with both falcons looking at her with big eyes as if entranced. She gently caressed their wings at which point they bowed their heads, accepting her as their goddess too. There were six beauties at that table, not four, but I wanted to create a subtle tension that Anthi surely understood (understands) as did my Athena, and Eléni as well but differently as you may understand if you read all ten previous parts and remember some of the details. Even the olive trees rustled their leaves in glee. No matter, as our beauties discussed their favourite parts when making love. They seemed to have agreed on the most important one, which I know some of you will disagree with. Please do not think it to be the heart, a good blood pump at most, nothing more, nothing less. The mind was and will always be the most important part as well as the sexiest one, notwithstanding the pussy that only dwarfs it during both the rehearsal and the act and often the re-enactment of something so divinely inspired, especially in my case when Goddess Athena is under my spell. I exaggerate, of course. Do I? She came down after two thousand years. What did I say? What could have I said to bring her back after two millennia? Those words are only ours. It would be dangerous and unwise to reveal them in case they could work with any deity, and some of them are surely awful if not plainly evil.

Goddess Athena allowed all of them to kiss her on the cheeks, all three ending up on the right one like Anthi and Eléni before. It was apparently a Greek thing. Maybe Anthi and Rigópoula could confirm it in a comment. Perhaps it depends on whom one kisses. Even I always start from left to right, which for the one kissing is from right to left. We end on our left which mirrors ending on their right. Luckily we only have two cheeks ((giggles)). That darn implicit five-minute-read rule has been reached again, perhaps as it should, since the next part promises to be monumental and may pass the five-minute mark just out of spite or sheer resolve to tell it all. I wish you good tidings wherever you may be, whether in Greece, down under, in North America, or anywhere else where you see the Sun, the Moon and the stars. À bientôt ! See you soon! Ta léme sýntoma!

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I would like to thank Anthi and Rigópoula for adding the touch of reality required to render this fiction more accessible in present Greece while always keeping Ancient Greece at the forefront, notwithstanding Goddess Athena’s unquestionable permanence in the psyche of those who really know her.

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