“Honey, I was a 196-year-old half-cut oak. And what did the sensors not see in my branches and leaves! I ruled together with my sisters from the Christian year 1826 in that square – at the top of the hill overlooking our Aegean Sea. We weren't wild. We came from the well-known Macedonian oak family and he planted us there, in the former "Giaur Dere", Turkish hand.
From up there, our tenth oldest ancestors, saw the Greek triremes sail to Troy and return the beautiful Helen – grieving – to the palace of Menelaus in Sparta and the warlike Spartans train the young warriors against our stoutly tolerant trunk. We, the younger ones, saw the frigate Elli approaching Nafplio and Kapodistrias disembarking at Aegina, with the other frigate Hera. We saw the ships of war, the dinghies, the caiques, the schooners, the slipper, the brig, and the brats with their crumpled sails sailing towards Navarino. We also saw the large ships carrying out the development projects of Trikoupis sailing forward at full speed in the blue Aegean. We saw Mount Athos submit to the Turks. Among the events, we saw the annexation of the Iptane Islands and the Dodecanese to Greece, the Macedonian Struggle, the Balkan Wars, the liberation of Thessaloniki, the Asia Minor refugee, the Hellenic-Italian War, the German Occupation, the holocaust of Makrinea that transformed the blessed place in the place of a skull, the lowering of the German flag from the Acropolis, the single-seat bombers that tore through the Attic sky with excessive speed just before the liberation, the Civil War and with our own binoculars, even the Seismic threateningly circling the Aegean behind Thassos.
Our ancestors saw Alexander the Great's campaign to the East in the same way. Under the shadow of our first cousin in Morea, we saw Kolokotronis camping his tired lads and the handsome Makrygianni with the clear look, timidly writing his memoirs. We also saw Papadiamantis writing "goutou goupatou" under the shade of a broadleaf tree in Skiathos.
We saw the island gannets happily emptying their loaded nets into the boats, while the vultures – in the company of the islanders the petrels – before their population dwindled brought us not only the news, but also the mountain breeze of their regular journey from Saos on Olympus, Tzoumerka, Korakas, Psiloritis and Chionistra of Cyprus. We have seen governments die and others be born and so much more! We even saw that devil Melek, Hursit Pasha's little Yusuf, digging and hiding the pounds he stole from his master's chukka, inside a woven Chinese red bag embroidered with golden elephants, you can't imagine where! Under the roots of the blue bougainvillea, there behind the coop of our church. Surely you don't know that in Turkish Melek means Angel!
We saw, and what we didn't see my child, and we experienced our homeland in all its glory and with all our being! The intensity of the great, time-symbolic images, deeds and heroic moments of our homeland that we all experienced in our own painfully static way, was imprinted on the cell wall of our foliage, which made it rustle proudly and cool you you Greeks more. Where you see the periodicity of our ring pattern lose its symmetry, it is because it has been scarred and altered by the brutality it experienced, as it was then on '22 exactly 200 years ago at the massacre of Chios, when the horror was imprinted on the plant cell. us this time, in a sick way.
For hundreds of years we have given you the pleasure of seeing the natural landscape that your ancestors saw! We stood undaunted under the hot sun to generously offer you our shade and in ancient times we were honored as sacred - prophetic trees, while now our younger sisters have become tables in the town hall, and we were decimated just a little while ago because we remind you of nothingness!
excerpt from the monologue of the oak that participates in the 8th volume of the Cypriot Philological New Year
was honored with praise from the 3rd Panhellenic
Prose literary competition of Kefalos publications and participates in
His collective volume in the Adult Category, he participated in the semi-final of the 2nd
original theatrical monologue competition on stage of the Screenwriters
of Greece and also participates in the Cypriot Philological New Year 2022-2023
of EPOK - excerpt is hosted on the channel of the literary magazine
storywits on YouTube.
photo mariya_m / https://pixabay.com
