(A prose narrative trying to use a `poetically` rhythmic and typographical form)

 

 

 

Not a breeze stirred. The shuttered houses cowered from the insufferable sun. Down

in the tiny harbour the still water glinting dully. On the small, round quay only a lone

taverna ventured an open door.

 

Repelled by the scorching impossibility of the nearby beach the tourist–marooned till

the returning evening bus-shrank into the wedge of shade on the quay and deteriorated

into the torpor of the long noon.

 

The drone that prised his heavy lids apart was no bee, but the hum of an approaching

motor and as the sound cut, his sluggish eyes boggled at the weird, over-laden vessel

ghosting silently to the quay.

 

In it–two abreast-and slumped miserably over their sticks, were six ancient old crocks

clad in fawn blazers and wearing panama hats. At the tiller steered a tall lady in a high

hat and a flimsy muslin dress.

 

As they neared the lady came forward and, roused , the tourist stretched out a hand to

help. Declining, she spoke…and for a bizarre space his brain accused his ears of lying

about what they had heard.

 

She had said in precise upper-class English: `I can`t, I`ve been swimming and I have

no knickers on, and if I bend forward then these dirty old buggers behind will squint

up my frock at my arse`.

 

Fallen back, he stared as she stepped ashore, hauled each man unceremoniously up on

to the quay, shuffled them to sit at the outer taverna table and–to his horror–brusquely

divested each one of his hat!

 

Barking a shrill menu she fetched out their plates and stood over them as they picked

listlessly at the food. Unbelievably, not one single drink was served them. She herself

partook of nothing.

 

The feeding finished, she propped them all to a rickety uprightness and – hats back on

and blazers straightened–urged their reluctant footsteps back to a clumsy and arthritic

re-embarkation at the quay.

 

Slumping them back over their sticks, she re–took the tiller, flicked on the motivation,

and clove her weird freight off into the invisibility of the heat haze…The entire stop

had taken but half an hour.

 

His mouth opening and shutting dumbly, the tourist stared uncomprehendingly Into

the haze after them until, succumbing, he shrank back into his wedge of shade and

the oblivion of the heat.

 

Back at Gaios  It was not to be explained, there was no yacht along the coast, no such

party of elderly people on the island, Who were they?  What were they doing in such

a place. Who was the lady?

 

Some Dantean group of old unrepentant lechers perhaps, taken in their decrepitude

and damned to wander over that flat desolate sea having their enfeebled impotence

perpetually tortured by that tall, knickerless Amazon?

 

Or where they?….or maybe?…or perhaps? But no matter. It is good that some sort of

mystery should shake us sometimes. A strange, ominous glooming glowered over the

Paxos sunset that evening.