The day is overcast and filled with the undeniable essence of doom, as if it were the setting of a once great mythological tragedy, but I have arrived during the aftermath of the narrative’s explosive climax. You can almost hear lost fairies weeping, or war-torn mermaids serenading lonely suffering sailors – with their sweet siren songs – luring them and now myself to our deaths, to the great unknown depths of the cavernous and malevolent sea that curses and hisses like tortured devil spirits, fallen angels, below me, or wailing creatures of the vast deep whose screams of immense divine power cascade up towards the surface of reality – but are subdued by the clashing crash of dark and unearthly machinery, that powers the wheels of time, in an alternate dimension – and yet somehow seep through the mournful air like a delicate whisper in the wind.
The other night, before we left Athens on the boat and sailed for Mandrakia, I was walking through the streets of Athens looking for a quiet bar in which I could hang my head and drink, when I saw two women – ladies of the night, prostitutes to be crude – who were at once unutterably beautiful and sad and mysterious, somehow all at the same time, vulnerable and lost, sad and holy. I was completely transfixed by their exulting presence and found myself, standing at a distance, gazing upon them with an inordinate intensity of interest. Their every move was, in my mind, subtle as a quiver and yet screamed some truth about their personality or past or state of mind; I couldn’t help but stare for what felt like hours, until finally a strange figure arose from the darkness, was illuminated under the orange haze of the streetlights, and beckoned them into his car with the alluring scent of fresh cash. At once the fantasy bubble of my romantic obsession with them burst and I found myself confronted with the harsh reality of their position in this strange cosmic soup of time and matter and energy in which we truly are all so small.
Oh, the horror that has been done, it cannot be faced, I see it all, it is too much, I feel it all, how can anyone face the sheer immensity of suffering that has occurred in the brief history of human existence and not wake in the night as I do shivering with cold sweats utterly terrified and despairing at the incalculable quantitative amount of pain that has been inflicted on the innocent creatures of this earth, the children of time, the phantoms of grief who’re forced to roam this barren wasteland of pain and terror until finally their morbid limbs have gruesomely decayed before their very eyes, oh, horror, oh, time, oh, the terror of existence is insurmountable; what can one do but weep and pray for death? For there is no victory in life, none that can overcome the defeats we have already suffered, the task is too great. We are too late. Our efforts seem but feathers crushed by a monstrous waterfall of pain.
Journal Extract by Stamos Mardou