Agamemnon: “What is that star in the night sky?”
The servant: “Sirius, rising in the heaven, next to the seven Pleiades.”
Agamemnon: “Listen! Not a sound anywhere, not a bird, not a whisper from the sea …”
In a deep, resonant voice, the narrator, Paki Pilofakis, explained the dilemma. The sweetness of ambition is forever entwined with grief.
In the distant sea, a rumble could be heard. Most of the crowd thought it was thunder. Were the angry gods plotting their revenge? The audience was in rapture, believing this was well planned and intended. They thought loudspeakers had been placed behind them, in the distance, to act as the voice of the heavens.
Overhead the stars and moon were swallowed, disappearing from view – and again another rumble. This one was closer, burdening their ears. It was followed by a tremor from someplace deep within the earth.
It shook the stage, moving the floor lights from side to side.
Dionysos removed the helmet of Agamemnon and threw it to the ground. His eyes lurched toward Pilofakis. He had argued for weeks against his murderous role of killing the defenceless Iphigenia. “What kind of man would kill his daughter so he might go to war? If there is to be a sacrifice, then it should be Agamemnon himself. If he is brave, then there are no scapegoats.”
Dionysos turned to the sea and raised his massive fist. Along with his shouts arrived the brutal force of the winds. The audience was filled with fear. Their wide eyes were pleading for the king to cease his blasphemy and undo the chaos he had brought upon them all.
Agamemnon, standing before the audience, bellowed over the noise of the winds. “No mortal man can come through his life unscathed, nor can he know real happiness. An unbruised human being has never yet been raised.”
He paused, choking with emotion. “And now my betrayal is laid bare. My deceit has not brought sacrifice but has brought demons from hell.” His huge voice shouted outward toward the sky. “Show your evil face so I can see it. I see only your deceit that hides behind the darkness, hides behind the wind.” He drew a sword from his scabbard.
The narrator, Pilofakis, prompted a fearful chorus to sing … to sing anything. Agamemnon had been swallowed by Dionysos, who invented, in an instant, a script of his own.
The angelic voices of the chorus seemed feeble amidst the thunder and the wind. Amid the shrieks and nervous chatter, Pilofakis raised both hands as though straining to lift a boulder. The singing voices lifted to become louder.
To the north, a sound came slowly rising from the sea. It was an agonizing growl that turned every eye seaward. The ground beneath began to shake and sway as rocks moved beneath their feet. The chairs and stage rocked to and fro and the bells of St Constantino and Eleni began to chime erratically. The actors and audience began to run frantically. They ran toward the arched bridge just as the canal split apart, sucking some of them into the sea. The roar from the shifting earth dwarfed screams of horror as the seabed was pushed from below, lifting the sunken city of Eleus. Dionysos remained, the last on stage, torn between standing firm or fleeing to higher ground.
The people ran back between the lighted torches that were toppling to the ground. As the seabed lifted, remnants of ancient houses rose to the surface. It was as if a monstrous hand had pushed the earth’s crust with one heave, laying bare the past.
All reason had been swallowed in an instant as the Minoan past appeared upon this earth, rising up from below to join the present. From Eleus and the shores along the sea came unfamiliar people from an ancient time. They were running, fleeing in fear as they once had done. Modern and ancient men and women were now together, side by side, distinguished only by their dress.
Dionysos watched as they passed before his eyes. Scores and scores of them came up from the darkness near the sea. He grabbed the arm of one young Minoan woman who stared directly into his eyes and then pulled away anxiously.
As more Minoans ran by, he shouted, “Why are you here? Where did you come from?”
Dionysos stood on the stage, his red face burning. He again unsheathed the sword of Agamemnon and fearlessly raised it as the stage on which he stood teetered, about to collapse.
Keftiu, Ancient Crete
1628 BC
The night before my departure seemed very long. I felt the joy of having my wife and son in my embrace throughout the night, but deep within my thumos, I was hollow with remorse. The night foretold I would grieve the loss of Eleus and the Keftiuian I had become.
Basilius greeted me in the morning with the food of consecration, an offering to fill my belly and my spirit. “The seas will be kind to you,” he said.
We walked side by side to the wharf, my short legs trying to keep up with his long stride. I wanted to savour my last moments on Keftiu, though he was anxious that I go.
The wind blew hard, bringing the smoke of Akrotiri high above us. The sun barely shone. It was a faint light through the thickness. We spoke not a word of it, though in my thumos I was tight with dread.
“Ah,” he said. “This is a good day, Minunep. The people gather at the palace, awaiting a new beginning.”
I nodded, silent with thought. In his wisdom he already knew what I was thinking, having looked inside my noos. His face grew dim, saying he knew I understood more than my words spoke.
“Our people are happy, but the wick has grown short.”
I was saddened by his words.
We walked as brothers to my ship. We passed beside the palace and I could see a sacred bull being harnessed with a rope. The young bull was to be taken to Oaxsa.
My noos told me how they entered the temple and placed the bull’s head upon the heavy stone of consecration. They tied it securely. Above hung a huge double axe set in motion by a priest. It began swinging from side to side above the sacred bull. My eyes watched as the pendulum swung shorter and shorter, back and forth. The voices ceased singing. The music stopped. The golden double axe moved back and forth more slowly now.
I saw Basilius look up to the sky as something flew swiftly through the air. It was a mountain bird landing on the pillar to sing. How beautiful its voice, singing to the trussed white bull below.
I watched as Keesos, the priestess, placed a large ring on the finger of Basilius and a seal stone on his wrist.
Basilius withdrew a large knife from his sheath and with a single motion sliced the throat of the great white bull. From the gurgling throat poured blood that was captured within a sacred rhyton. It filled to the brim. Keesos then carried the blood down the corridor. Mendaphi and Wannaxsos carried the pods and seeds of the new season. The offering was made to the soil, feeding it, returning life to Meterra so the season would be born again. The sacrifice was complete. Life was to be renewed as it had always been. Meterra would be pleased. All this my noos told me and I wished it to be true.
I bade farewell to Basilius, saying I would, upon my Pharaoh’s request, return to honour Keftiu and Wannaxsos. He made no reply.
My ship was pulled by many men into the sea. We set sail for the east. I watched Basilius who stood firm on the shore. I watched until our eyes could no longer touch. My thumos cried when I could no longer see him or Eleus. Only the mountain of Oaxsa remained. As that, too, disappeared into the black haze, I felt deep sorrow and loss. Keftiu had dissolved into the waters of the Great Green Sea. As I would later discover, some of it would always remain in me.
The sky grew black and a hot, dry dust fell down on the water. Soon the seas grew warm and filled with bubbles. I urged my men to row as fast as the wind. The oarsmen were strong and swift. We left the boiling sea behind us. Basilius was a wise man and I believe he always knew the fate of Eleus and all of Keftiu.
Many seasons passed before I would return to Keftiu again. My wife had grown full a second time, bringing forth a new son. The continuous spiral of seasons moved swiftly on the winds of time, but never did I lose my love for the people of Keftiu and Eleus. Inside me still lived Keftiu air – Keftiu breath. Never would
it leave me until the moment of my death.
My two sons would join my ship as I had once joined my father’s, gliding into the waters of the Great Green Sea.
We passed through calm water to the island of Akrotiri, navigating with prudence toward her fiery breath. I looked for the black clouds, but there were none. Something was wrong. There was no mountain of black smoke. Where the mountain once had been, there was water. Only part of Akrotiri remained intact. Some great force had swallowed her. It looked as if a demon from the deep had taken a mighty bite. The island was now in the crescent shape of an early moon. It was like the broken horns of the great white bull.
Travelling south to Keftiu and Eleus, I wondered of Meterra if she had swallowed the mountain of black smoke or if she had perished within the jaws of some greater god. My thumos was numbed with cold as our oars clipped across the great green waters.
Alas, my eyes could see Oaxsos, the mighty giant. She welcomed me back like a good friend. Keftiu entered my phrenes as we approached land. I was so joyful. As we rowed across the base of Oaxsos, I could not see Eleus. The land along the sea had narrowed between the sea and the gulf within. In shallow water beneath my ship, I saw the remains of many houses. Eleus had sunk beneath the water. The palace had been sucked into the Great Green Sea.
On shore were tribes of people from the north. My friends were all gone. I saw no one who remembered me. The people here said their armies had conquered all of Keftiu with ease. They did admit a great wave had swallowed every city along the coast. The trees had been poisoned by grey dust. What people remained had escaped by sea, leaving Keftiu empty.
They spoke of one old man living in the mountsins who had witnessed the sinking of Eleus. I begged to be taken to him so I might learn the fate of my friends. He lived alone in a small cave at the base of Oaxsos. Monos welcomed me by his fire. There he told me his story.
Monos told how the black clouds from Akrotiri filled the air and there was great fear in Eleus. King Wannaxsos fell into grief on this day, for his son, Sarapos, remained in life. In the courtyard of the palace, Wannaxsos prayed aloud to the Goddess Meterra, who did not speak in return. In desperation, the king slit his own throat before the eyes of his people and fell on the ground, his life pouring from his throat into the soil.
Meterra’s voice belched across the water from Akrotiri. It was a noise that deafened Monos’ ears. Fire fell from the sky with pieces of hot rock. White dust soon followed.
Basilius led Mendaphi, Sarapos and Keesos to Oaxsos. Sarapos, full of fear, did not want to leave his father’s body. The boy was bound with cord and carried to the temple. Monos told me he was one of four guards chosen for sacred duty outside the temple of consecration. Sarapos and Mendaphi entered the temple together. Basilius and Keesos followed. No others could enter such a sacred place. Monos waited outside by the tree of bristle cones, the tree with the golden boughs.
Divine Prince, Netherworld,
Today you bring the black sun
and not the flaming white.
Charged with powers divine
the raging waters of the sea,
the voices of dark angels
and the pain of poetry.
I awake in blindness.
No life within my eyes.
The black sun is falling.
The darkness fills the skies.
Mavrokakis
Circa 1880s
S
omewhere far below the earth and out to sea, the angry molten demon had waited patiently. For years the hand of darkness plotted, choosing the exact moment to heave the earth in anger and blame. The earth’s crusts split along the weakest line. The sea began to sink into the abyss toward the unsatisfied heat of desire.
Mimis awoke on the altar of consecration, feeling himself falling through both sides of time. He was captured by the tremors of confusion. The pain he felt was not the dread of dying, but the brutal dread of blame. Cephalau, Pharmacos, Skoulis. The others. Had they passed in reverie or did they die in vain? The question shot across his mind.
Dozens of fractured images came to him. These were flashes of men who had died upon Oaxsa, some leaping from its peak. One after another, after another and another, all leaping off without a sound. He saw their faces, each and every one, moments before their last breath escaped. He felt their weightlessness and the gravity of his own body falling with them.
The flashes repeated. This time they wore the mask of Talus: scapegoats, all of them, flung off the cliff of sacrifice. Mimis saw their faces as they fell, some in horror, some blissfully diving off into a sea of air. He did not see their final moment, crushed upon the rocks. Nor did he see their spirits fly with wings that yearned for freedom, changing into a partridge or collected by the winds.
It was the image of Pharmacos leaping outward that finally rested in his mind. He saw the young man’s arms raised, a sea-washed pebble in each open hand as if in offering. Pharmacos tapped two stones together, making a sharp clicking sound that echoed into the valley below. Pharmacos’ face was sweet and calm, not demonic or possessed. He stood upon the mountain with a gentle smile on his face. His body was surrounded by a halo of warmth.
Mimis placed his feet along the ledge. He raised his arms outward toward a gap in the clouds, toward a narrow river of moonlight. He inhaled the night and turned his head backwards, a final glance, past the temple ruins to the tree of golden boughs. There, beyond the tree and rushing toward him, was Demetra. She was waving and shouting, though he heard not a word. The mystes, wide-eyed, remained beneath the tree. Above them, a comet of light streaked across the sky.
Silence fell. Veils of nothingness cushioned Mimis Steffanakis from the world. The quaking earth had fractured below. The shift of massive rock upon Oaxsa was deadened in his ears, so too, the wind. At this moment he was removed from all humanity. Closing his eyes, he knew he had stepped through and he must continue his journey alone.
Mimis stood on a precipice on Oaxsa preparing to leap, while below, the ancient-spirited whale of Eleus was heaved out of the sea, intact, rising out of the water. Modern and ancient men were running side by side, fleeing for their lives – together, yet apart.
Time past and present travelled in parallel. Through a conduit of torches they all fled. Together they ran across the stone bridge, and when it collapsed, they all leapt into the canal and climbed the rock embankment on the other side. One man helped another, hands clasping hands in a common cause – the search for higher ground. The seas lifted above the wharf and into the streets of Elefsis Port.
One vessel lost its moorings and was heaved onto the platea by a succession of hostile waves. It rolled onto one side, snapping the main mast, and was wedged beside a concrete bench.
The thunder beneath the earth rolled from sea to shore. The fleeing men and women could hear the roar arriving from the north. The groan of grinding rock rolled past them. A gaping mouth chewed through the crust; a serpent’s body burrowing, pulverizing everything in its path.
They were not fleeing a single act of nature. This was not an accident, nor was it as haphazard as a passing storm. The frightful rising sea, the wave upon wave of shifting earth, and the deafening sounds of beds of rock being pulverized, were the awakening of ancient faults. It was the opening of wounds never healed.
Ancient men and women in ancient dress, and the people of Elefsis, were running side by side, in parallel, in tandem; the shoeless and the shoed; women in flounced dresses with bare breasts beside women draped in black shawls and skirts. They were bound only by the horror of this incident; flung forward. Those from the past and the present witnessed each other in flashes. Once invisible ethers of quantum silence now revealed themselves. The present and the past had crossed into timelessness. Horror was conjoined with reverie.
They clock tower swayed and the bells chimed without the aid of human hands. The fearful listened. If the clock tower collapsed, they would know their God had been driven out, leaving them abandoned.
The wind
spun its web of death, entwining all on either side of time. A savage vortex threw itself upon the Cretan land again. The rhythm of the present collided with a rhythm from the past, violent twisting spirals intersecting. There for all to witness was the explosive convergence. Was this happening in their dreams?
As Mimis stood upon the mountain ledge with outstretched arms, he thought of the words of Dionysos: “All men need the freedom to dream and the bravery to act, at least once.”
He stepped closer to the edge, knowing there was a choice of dancing outward to the stars or walking away in silence. If he chose the latter, he would remain upon this earth. With sealed lips he would retreat, taking the mysteries of Oaxsa with him. Not another word would be spoken. His thoughts would be forever silent and safe within his mind. Or might he leap into action, creating spirit from matter on the run and leap out onto the stars?
The frantic face of Demetra came toward him. He could not hear her crying voice, the sound of the wind, nor the sound of his own heart beating.
With his eyes wide open, he looked beyond the darkness and through the clouds. He stepped beyond the ledge of Oaxsa. In that fraction of a moment his senses returned to hear the sounds of the earth, the beating of his heart. He heard Demetra’s scream, “Mimis!” He closed his eyes in resignation, and in that fraction of a moment, he felt the quiet hand of gravity pull him down.
Outward he stepped into the weightlessness. With arms outstretched, he glided through the heavens. He moved with exhilarating ease, this featherless man; up and down, in and out, spiraling through the membrane of time. Capitano Steffanakis, sailor of the heavens, upon his midnight ship – a free man.
With one determined act, he stepped into the white light of finite possibilities. Mimis Steffanakis was collapsing through the shimmering waves of a quantum world. He looked down to the familiar coast of Crete. Below, upon the ancient sea, men rowed in darkness away from Keftiu.
Digging at the Crossroads of Time Page 27
