BAGHDAD BANQUET

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THE CRUELEST MONTH

April is the cruelest month breeding
Lilac out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull root with spring rain
T.S.ELOT



ANCIENTS' REMAINS
K.HASSAN

Baghdad Banquet
K.Hassan

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THE FIRST TRIAL

It is a mythical reading of Socrates trial.

Kay Hassan

When I landed on the shores of Greece, the city of Athens was already alive with restless murmurs and discord. For the first time since exile’s iron mouth unclenched its teeth, I entered the winding heart of my beloved city. The air buzzed with the clamour of voices—some angry, some fearful, and others brimming with anticipation. Rumours raced like wildfire through the narrow streets, carried on the breath of every passerby. I could feel the city’s turmoil pulsing beneath my feet, as if even the very stones whispered of the trials to come.

The streets of Athens stretched before me like a living mosaic—winding paths flanked by columns and modest shops. Dust curled beneath each hurried step, mingling with the scent of fresh olives and simmering herbs. Citizens flowed like currents through the bustling agora, their voices rising in heated argument and idle gossip alike. I was swept along with them, unthinking, pulled toward the Court of the City. The press of bodies bore me through tight alleys, past flickering oil lamps and low murmurs. Stone steps rose ahead, worn smooth by generations, and I climbed them with the others—heart pounding, breath quickening, the city's expectation thrumming in my bones.

At last, I reached the threshold. The Court loomed above—an ancient beast of marble and silence, exhaling cold against my spine. Its columns stood like ribs around a hollow heart, and as I crossed beneath their shadows, I felt the weight of judgment settle over me. Even before dawn had scattered the dark, the people had gathered, drawn by the gravity of the day. In the hush before sunrise, I waited—one among many, yet utterly alone beneath the gaze of stone and the silence of a city.

The trial, I thought, would now begin.

But then came a disturbance—a low rustle swelling into a ripple, and from the heart of the crowd, a voice rose like thunder:
“Socrates... Socrates...”
The name fell like a spear from Olympus.

Even the accusers froze—Anytus, Melletus, Lycon—their mockery curdling on their tongues.
Meletus, the poet, had led the prosecution, accusing Socrates of impiety and of corrupting Athens’ youth. Anytus, the politician, and Lycon, the rhetorician, stood beside him, each bound by their grievances. Anytus hated Socrates for criticizing democracy and for consorting with traitors like Alcibiades and Critias. Lycon feared the philosopher’s challenge to the shallow brilliance of the orators. Together, they painted Socrates not as a thinker, but a threat—an infection within the body of the city.

As the case unfolded, I stood among the five hundred jurors—Dikasts, citizens entrusted with judgment. The air was heavy, dense with history and expectation. Socrates, defiant, met the charges with calm wit, unraveling them thread by thread. His words stirred something deep within me—a flicker of admiration, of doubt, of fear.

Then my turn came.

I rose. My voice rang clear, shaped by long exile and crafted for this moment.
“I am Hector,” I declared,
“Son of Zeus and Pericles—the thunder and the mind—the blood of Olympus and the architect of mortal glory. Peer to kings, flame among the crowned elite of Greece.”

These words were not spoken; they descended—solemn, inevitable—drawn from some deeper place, as if carried on the breath of vanished Titans. The pillars held their breath. I had summoned each syllable from the vaults of my ancestry, where fire slumbers beneath the skin of gods.

For this moment, I adorned myself in the arrogance of legend. I had shaped my rhetoric until it curled like polished bronze around my tongue. I had stood beneath shattered statues of Pallas Athena, staring into her eyeless sockets, daring her to judge me. I had sculpted myself into a figure worthy of divine scrutiny.

In this city—this theatre of illusions—one must not simply speak; one must appear eternal. Here, where gossip drips like nectar from perfumed tongues, and sculptors chisel gods from men and men from marble, truth must wear a mask. A naked truth would rot like fruit unblessed. So I gave them what they wanted—an echo of Pericles, wrapped in gold and fire.

I was not prepared.
I was forged.

Hammered by expectation, tempered by oath, crowned by the heat of that final summer—Athens’ sacred pageant. This tribunal was no trial. It was a rite, a performance, an unveiling of heaven’s will.

Above us, the noblemen hovered like constellations in judgment—men who wove their daily affairs with the whims of Olympus. Their ambition soared beyond mortal bounds, gilded with myth and the belief that they themselves were caretakers of divinity. Athens was their altar. We, its sons, were the offering and the flame.

And yet, even as I stood among them—lion-masked, haloed in illusion—I felt the truth clawing at my bones: I was being consumed. All I was—all Pericles had been—was now currency. My voice, my image, my name: diluted in their wine, offered to feed their fantasy.

I remember the scent of that morning. Cold air, stripped of bloom. The jasmine, narcissus, asphodel—flowers of Elysium—were gone, out of season. In their place: withered stems, barbed herbs, yellowed grass clinging to cracked earth beside the marble gates. Even the gods, it seemed, had held their breath.

I watched from behind my mask of marble. There they sat: the Titans of Athens.
Anytus, son of Anthemion.
Melletus, serpent-tongued.
Lycon, the smiling wolf.
They sat as fates might sit—drinking wine and setting their empty glasses down as though sacrificing silence itself.

Farther down, the guards danced through drills, swords flashing like extensions of will. Boys in white tunics perched on the fences, angelic, wide-eyed, watching with the awe of unborn philosophers.

But beneath the polished calm, chaos reigned. The soul of Athens trembled. Beauty cloaked a fracture. And I, its supposed saviour, felt the tremble in my own hands. My charge was order. My burden: impossible. I was not a man—I was myth. A ghost of Pericles forged in the fires of war, trailed by a thousand lies.

They called me incorruptible.

“Finally,” whispered Anytus, his voice like smoke, “the city shall come to rest.”

“We owe Zeus a heavy sacrifice,” said Melletus, his eyes gleaming with borrowed righteousness.

“A tale must be told...” Lycon murmured, his glance like a blade slicing through me.
“This young general... he does not know the game.”

“He wounds none but himself,” added Melletus, cold and certain.

Lycon smirked. “Better still—he does not know how to enjoy his wounds.”

And in that laughter, I saw my future: not as flame, not as saviour—but as pawn. Their knives were already in place.

And I had not yet spoken.

Right—I thought—because I was not meant for the indulgences of common joy. From the cradle, I had been bound by the old oaths of my bloodline. The family’s law was like a braided curse: sacred, ancestral, unbroken. The pleasures of lesser men—laughter, wine, the thrill of vulgar sport—were forbidden to me. I could mimic their joys, wear their masks, but I could never feel what they felt. Even now, in this trial of an old man, with the city roaring like a beast around me, I remained untouched. I had never breached the ban. Not once.

And yet—I was not alone.

A whisper unfurled against the edge of my ear, warmer than breath, older than language.
"Rumors and gossips may devour you, son."

The voice was sweet, but not of this world—it was the echo of a woman who should have faded into dust long ago. My spine turned to frost. My breath halted.

“Aspasia,” I muttered, as though naming her might dissolve the apparition. “It is not the right time.”

No reply. Just the silence of a memory too vivid to die.

“Aspasia,” I said again, louder. “Aspasia!”

Then I saw her—half-formed at first, rising like smoke made flesh. She stood at the far edge of the court, haloed in the shimmer of unreality, her form flickering as if between this world and the next. Her face contorted with rage, not at me—but at something charging toward her.

Xanthippe’s carriage.

It cut through the crowd like a storm, and Aspasia—struck, but not broken—reeled back with the fury of a goddess denied.

“Zeus Almighty!” she cried, voice like thunder tearing through silk. “Xanthippe still walks the earth, does she?”

Her voice crackled through me like lightning over a parched field.

“The old man will cast you out, Xanthippe,” she snarled.

There was fire in her eyes, not of the hearth, but of Olympus—of vengeance old as creation.

I had never known why Aspasia hated Xanthippe, nor why she loved life so fiercely. But the air between them now bristled with myth—two legacies clashing like empires at the end of time. Nervously, I stepped back.

“Leave this place,” I whispered, barely audible. “You don’t belong here.”

But she ignored me. Her gaze had locked onto something eternal.

Aspasia had mocked duty while alive, danced through the salons of Athens like a tempest, but never lost the scent of truth. Her jealousy, her wit—they had scorched many. I threw a barb without thinking.

“You were always jealous,” I snapped, “and intolerant of anyone who dared challenge you.”

But I recalled, too late, the saying whispered in Athenian wine halls and temples alike:

Only Socrates and Pericles could endure the twin fires of Xanthippe and Aspasia.

She pierced my thought like a spear of light.
“He is a man of faith, son,” she said with sudden clarity, her voice brittle with warning.

“Who?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

“I speak. You listen,” she cut in sharply. “Hector! Who else could I mean?”

Her words rang not just in my ears, but in the marrow of my bones. The air shimmered with invisible hands turning fate like a scroll.

“Alas,” I whispered bitterly, “since when have the dead governed the living?”

And then, like a flame uncoiling from its wick, she replied with chilling grace:

“Son, we do not die like commoners.” Aspasia said.

Aspasia was me mother.

I was—however—suddenly seized, not by thought, but by vision.

“Xantippe.”

Her name left my lips like a warning, a prayer, or a curse. The air itself tensed. She had been banned by her husband from the court, and yet—there she stood. Not walking. Not arriving. Appearing. As if conjured from storm-clouds and memory, as if a rift had opened in the marble columns and spilled forth the very spirit of domestic fury.

Xantippe—thunder-voiced and rain-veined—stood at the edge of the crowd, draped in shadow and the rustle of invisible winds. Her face bore no malice, no wrath, only the hollow grace of a woman who had given everything—mind, body, reputation—for a man carved from paradox. Her eyes were not eyes; they were empty rooms where once burned the fire of love. Her lips did not tremble; they mourned without moving.

I saw between us a narrow alley, yet it seemed a chasm between worlds. Through it, the citizens passed like revenants—ghosts of Athens, cloaked in chanting rage:
“Kill Socrates. Banish Socrates.”
Their mouths moved, but the sound seemed to come from beneath the earth, as though the Furies themselves had begun to sing.

And without plan or will, I moved—drawn like a comet toward the sun, pulled by something older than obedience. The sun above had grown cold, like the eye of an indifferent god. I stepped into its rays, and felt none of its warmth.

“A miracle,” whispered someone near me.
“A curse,” breathed another.
But neither dared look directly at what approached.

Socrates.

The man walked like he was not walking. The court—the very marble—trembled beneath each step, not from weight, but from meaning. Earthquakes would envy such reverence. A hush fell so sharp it could cut bronze. Even the gods, if they watched, fell still.

He stopped mid-stride—alone, unshielded, unspeaking—and raised his face not to the jurors, but to the sky. To Zeus. To fate. To the void.

And then—he smiled.

It was not a mortal smile. It was the quiet smile of a man who had already walked through the underworld and returned with laughter in his lungs. His eyes, two ancient torches, flickered not with defiance, but with understanding so vast it mocked Olympus itself.

“Hector... look at the height of the truth,” Aspasia’s voice quivered like a reed in fire behind me.

“Get out of my sight, woman,” I gasped, heart slamming against my ribs like a bird in a burning cage.

“I speak. You shut up.”
And then she added, her voice soaring like the Sibyl's on the Pythian wind:
“See how his divine eyes glow—an Ode to Zeus.”

"But, it is my last chance to integrate into the noblemen's blood." 

But I would not bend. I had trained my soul to silence wonder. I had cauterized awe from my veins. Arrogantly—blindly—I scanned Socrates’ face, hunting for the serpent’s tongue, for the forked light in his gaze, anything to cast him down before the mob. I wanted to cry out:

“Zeus—strike the blasphemer down!”

But my tongue, traitorous, froze.

“No,” Aspasia howled like prophecy given flesh. “None of you see the real man of Athens!”

Her voice climbed into the heavens, where it scratched against the stars.

“This man has stolen your peace, unraveled your sleep, shattered the chain of your comfort! Yes! He has stolen your gods and left you only questions! You curse him—because he gave you your own minds!”

Then she turned to me.

“Hector... Hector, you were named after the great breaker of men.”
And now you tremble before one who breaks nothing but illusion.”

I could hear Athena’s whisper rippling through the air like wind through a war-banner:
“My word has been spoken.”

But the crowd—hungry, hollow—roared still.

And Aspasia, with the weight of thunder behind her bones, gave her final cry:
“No! This is not justice! This is a myth devouring its prophet! A handful of hypocrites are murdering the finest mind Athens has ever birthed!”

And then there was silence.
Not the silence of absence—but the silence before gods decide.

The trial of Socrates was not merely a legal proceeding; it was a cosmic event, a collision of the divine and the mortal, a moment where the very fabric of Athens trembled under the weight of fate. As I stood there, Hector—son of Pericles and Zeus, a man forged in the crucible of war and rhetoric—I was not merely a spectator. I was a vessel, a conduit through which the will of the gods was to be enacted.The city of Athens, that marble jewel of the ancient world, was alive with whispers and murmurs. The streets, usually bustling with the mundane affairs of daily life, now thrummed with a palpable tension. The air was thick with anticipation, as if the very heavens held their breath. The people, those fickle and often misguided masses, had gathered in the Agora, their eyes fixed upon the grand tribunal where the fate of Socrates would be decided.

I had been chosen, perhaps, to test my loyalty to my claim to restore my  honour, by  presiding  over this trial. In the letter , I received in my exile the magistrates had entrusted me with the responsibility, urging me to lead with fairness and wisdom. But how could I, a mere mortal, bear such a burden? How could I, a son of gods and men and Aspasia, stand in judgment over a soul as luminous as Socrates?As I approached the tribunal, my heart heavy with the weight of destiny, I saw him again in a full scope—Socrates. He stood before me, not as a criminal, but as a beacon of truth and defiance. His appearance was as legendary as his mind. His eyes, wide and unblinking, seemed to pierce through the veils of illusion, seeing the world as it truly was. His face, though not handsome by the standards of mortal men, radiated an inner beauty that transcended physical form. He was a man who had transcended the limitations of the flesh, a philosopher who had touched the divine secret. The gods loomed around me, their eternal gazes fixed on this hour—burdened by the shame of corruption that had defiled the sanctity of their hallowed laws. . Athena, the goddess of wisdom, stood beside me, her silent approval a comforting presence. Zeus, my father, watched from the heavens, his thunderous silence a reminder of the gravity of this trial. Even the spirits of the great men of Athens—Pericles, Alcibiades, and the like—hovered in the periphery, their expectations pressing down upon me.

The accusers—Anytus, Meletus, and Lycon—stood opposite, their faces twisted with malice and fear. They were but puppets, their strings pulled by forces beyond their comprehension. They spoke of impiety and corruption, of a man who questioned the gods and led the youth astray. But their words were hollow, empty echoes in the face of the truth that stood before me.

Socrates spoke, his voice calm and unwavering. He did not plead for mercy; he did not seek to escape his fate. Instead, he spoke of knowledge, of virtue, of the soul's journey toward enlightenment. His words were like arrows, striking at the heart of ignorance and fear. He did not defend himself; he illuminated the darkness around him.

And then, as if the very heavens had opened, a voice boomed from above. It was not the voice of a man, but of a god. "Hector," it called, "you are the son of Zeus and Pericles. You are the bridge between the divine and the mortal. Judge not with the eyes of man, but with the wisdom of the gods."

I looked up, and there, suspended in the air, was a figure of immense stature and majesty. It was Zeus himself, his form radiant and awe-inspiring. His eyes, like twin bolts of lightning, fixed upon me with an intensity that pierced my soul.

"Hector," he intoned, "this trial is not of Socrates, but of Athens. It is a test of your heart and your mind. Will you uphold the truth, or will you succumb to the pressures of the many? Will you stand as a beacon of justice, or will you falter in the face of fear?"

The weight of his words crushed me. I was torn between my duty to the city and my loyalty to the divine. But in that moment, I understood. This was not just a trial of Socrates; it was a trial of me, of my very essence.

With newfound clarity, I turned to Socrates. "Your accusers speak of impiety," I said, my voice steady, "but it is they who are blind to the divine. They see only the surface, not the depths. They fear what they do not understand."

I paused, letting my words sink in. "Socrates," I continued, "you are not guilty of the charges laid against you. You are guilty only of seeking truth in a world that prefers illusion. You are guilty only of loving wisdom in a city that worships power."

The crowd murmured, their disbelief palpable. But I stood firm, my resolve unshaken. I was the son of Zeus and Pericles, and I would not let the light of truth be extinguished.

And so, I rendered my judgment. "Socrates," I declared, "you are acquitted of all charges. You are free to continue your quest for knowledge and virtue."

The heavens themselves seemed to rejoice. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the city in a blaze of divine light. The crowd erupted in cheers, their voices a chorus of triumph.

But as I looked upon Socrates, I saw not a man, but a god. He stood there, unmoved, his expression serene. He had not sought this victory; he had sought only the truth. And in that, he had already won.

As the trial concluded and the crowd dispersed, I stood alone, contemplating the events that had transpired. I had been a mere instrument in the hands of the gods, a vessel through which their will had been enacted. But in that moment, I understood the true meaning of justice and wisdom.

The gods had spoken, and I had listened. The trial of Socrates had been a test, not of his character, but of mine. And in that test, I had found my true self

Strange—beneath the philosopher's feet, flickering lights danced like spirits caught between heaven and earth.

"Keep him from the jurors," the Chief Magistrate commanded, his voice terse, his eyes averting. He motioned for Socrates to step back, farther from the semicircle of seated men. Perhaps, I thought, he feared the old man’s presence—feared that the mere gravity of his soul might tilt the verdict.

Socrates looked up, and through those divine eyes, I sensed his quiet scorn. I doubted the Chief Magistrate had ever held a moment’s mercy for any prey that crossed his path.

Everyone trembled. I trembled too. Guilt gripped me like a vise. The ground beneath us groaned.

"Earthquake!" someone shouted.

The cry split the crowd like a blade. Panic surged through the air.

"Nonsense!" barked a vulgar priest, his voice thick with bile. "He’s an ungrateful, impious beast!"

“Speak, Hector! Speak, son of a whore—half-holy, half-cursed!” others screamed, their voices a chorus of chaos and hate.

But then—stillness. I was stunned, not by the noise, but by the old man’s composure, by his courage. In that moment, I felt hollowed out—unworthy of any virtue I had claimed.

Socrates spoke, not with force, but with unwavering calm:
“Fellow Athenians, will you not let me speak in defense of the truth?”

Like a coward, cloaked in my authority, I snapped:
“Hold your tongue, sophist!”
Then, turning to the magistrates, I said coldly:
“Shall we open the court, sir?”

"You should have asked earlier, little Pericles," the Chief Magistrate muttered, his voice drenched in disdain.

"I was... distracted, sir," I answered carefully.

“Distracted? By whom, for Zeus' sake?” he barked.

“We have ample time—”

“No,” he growled, cutting me off. “We have no time for theatrics.”

He leaned toward me, voice lowered, venomous:
“We shall not let the sophist speak.”

"It’s a matter of free speech, sir," I said, my voice tightening.

“Not today, Hector,” he replied. “You’d best step down.”

“I won’t. Not unless you force me,” I said, defiant—but burning inside.

I knew the eyes were on me—every pair, from gods to ghosts to gossips. And somewhere in their gaze, I heard again the ruin of Aspasia echoing down the years.

---

For a timeless eternity, I stood alone—an island cast adrift in the merciless sea of men. Yet, fate, in its unfathomable will, granted me this invitation to witness a reckoning of souls. Friends were but shadows in this city’s labyrinth, and so I confessed without shame, “Aspasia distracts me, sir.”

The Chief Magistrate inhaled sharply, his gaze like thunderclouds ready to strike. His voice was cold steel: “She destroyed Prickles, seduced Zeus himself. Now, it is your turn, Hector.”

“I honor your counsel, master,” I replied, “but she is my sacred mother—her voice burns in my veins.”

He sneered, “No doubt she seeks to save the old man through you.”

The air thickened as the divine whispered, clear and resonant as the strike of lightning, “I am no priest, but a man passing Zeus’s word.” His voice cracked the silence like a spear through the heavens—every ear caught the divine truth.

“One among you must guard Zeus’s words,” he declared, breath jubilant as the roaring sky, and nodded sharply for me to rise.

“Zeus’s word,” I breathed—an ember ignited in my soul. To the magistrate I dared, “He believes in Him.”

“Zeus has heard him. Speak, Hector. Speak!” the crowd hissed like serpents.

“Zeus hears all,” I proclaimed, voice unwavering.

“Blasphemer!” came the rabble’s venom.

“It is Aspasia’s doing!” the magistrate spat.

“Aspasia! Holy Moly!” some cried in panic.

The crowd surged, hands slicing the air in frenzied dismay.

The vilest of men called to sacrifice me—Hector—to Zeus.

My spirit faltered. My face froze like marble in a storm. The accusers, savage beasts, lunged and flung me from my place like a discarded relic.

“Leave the court, Hector!” the magistrate thundered.

I heard, yet I stood firm. I am as noble as any god or mortal dared to claim.

Athenians,” Socrates’s voice rose, a tempest contained within a whisper, “hear me. I speak only truth.”

The roar of the crowd surged to silence him like a tidal wave.

“I forbid you any further involvement, Hector,” the jurors growled—feral and unyielding.

“You err,” I thundered, “unless you forge your evidence from lies.” Their awkward faces spoke of guilt, though none dared admit it.

“Begone, Hector!”

“His words are a curse!” the crowd bellowed in fury.

“You know nothing!” I roared, shaking the very foundations of their scorn. Their furious eyes burned with hatred, but I bellowed again, a divine war cry that shattered the darkness—

“You know nothing.”

..............................................................***

 

---

With tongues sharpened like divine daggers, they unleashed a storm of venom upon Socrates, their roars fracturing the very air, their fury shaking the heavens themselves. The chief magistrate’s voice shattered the chaos like thunder, “Order! Order!” Yet I felt as if Aspasia herself had woven a curse around my lips—my tongue bound in chains forged by fate and fury. I refused to obey. Socrates stood unmoved, his eyes alight with an unearthly glow, and when they met mine, a strange smile curved his lips—knowing, ancient, eternal. In that moment, time itself held its breath. Silence fell like a sacred veil upon the court, thick and unyielding.

Around us, the world whispered its own hymn: crickets sang their delicate chorale, frogs croaked ancient riddles, birds murmured prophecies, and goats bleated atop jagged rocks, spectators of the unfolding destiny. Then a voice broke the stillness, ragged and urgent—Socrates stepped forward, his robes threadbare but his presence monumental, as jeering laughter erupted like a poisoned storm. The court fell silent again, as all eyes fixed on the wandering sage.

Across the floor, a serpent, yellow as the sun’s dying light, slithered unseen among the jurors—an omen writ in scales. “A miracle shook the three sacred islands!” cried a peasant from the fringe, his voice raw with disbelief. “Zeus—our Redeemer!” he cried, breathless. “I have run without rest to bring word to Athens.”

“Return to the city!” a voice commanded.

“But I found no soul left in the city,” the peasant whispered, haunted.

“Begone, barbarian!” the magistrates bellowed, venom dripping.

“I am no barbarian,” the peasant replied, fire in his voice. “I am Greek, child of this land.”

“What do you seek? Money? We will give you coin,” sneered the cynical mob.

“Keep your gold,” said the peasant. “Keep Socrates for your city.”

“Begone, peasant! The old man needs schooling himself!” jeered a harsher voice.

“You are mistaken, Master,” the peasant said boldly.

“Why say such madness?” one asked.

“Because my eyes behold truth,” came the reply.

“I dwell in the far East, upon caravan roads where merchants trade gold for Socrates’ aphorisms,” he declared.

Laughter thundered like crashing waves. The nastiest voice in the crowd spat, “We give you Socrates himself, for a piece of silver, peasant!” and shoved him from the court like a discarded shadow.

“I have never seen Athens unravel into such chaos,” the peasant muttered, retreating into the dust.

As his words echoed, I summoned a guard. “Watch over him—take him home. Help him if you can,” I commanded. But before the divine gaze locked on me, my mind spun blank—torn between reverence and doubt. “Am I, Hector, surrendering to a true man… or to a Goddamn sophist?” I whispered, trembling.

He moves with the grace of defeat and the power of the eternal. Athens’ sons will forever hear the reverberation of his voice—authoritative, vibrating through the ages.

“Speak...” his voice commanded.

“So that I may see you,” he said.

And I yielded—more deeply, more wholly—until passion consumed me, and I longed to kneel, to bow before the infinite, to serve the cause that transcended gods and men alike.

.........................................................................***

No one dared claim certainty that day—uncertainty hung thick as incense in the air, a dense fog cloaking the court. Yet, I sensed the philosopher’s gaze was a tempest, a force so potent it shattered the magistrates’ fragile focus. The chief magistrate, like a cornered beast, prepared to retreat from the unbearable truth poised to erupt.

“We are all Athenians—grown men,” he spat, voice laced with forced bravado, “and he stands alone.”

“He is not alone,” I replied steadily, “for the truth walks beside him.”

The magistrate’s lips curled in a venomous sneer. “The truth? Ha! The sophist’s poison truth!” His contempt sliced through the chamber, his gaze settling on me with calculated malice. A murmur rippled through the court—“Is Hector with him, or against us?”

“Find your place, son of Aspasia,” the magistrate growled, a serpent coiled and ready to strike.

“I will have my place, sir,” I said, unwavering.

Disappointment flickered in his eyes; he had expected supplication, not defiance. “You are Aspasia’s son, indeed.”

“Oh yes, I am,” I affirmed, pride like a burning torch in my chest.

“Are you even aware,” he shrieked, voice ragged with venom, “of the weight this court heaps upon Socrates’ head?”

“Yes,” I said, voice steady as the Athenian sun, “and I bear witness.”

“We have unleashed upon him the city’s fury and our own failures,” the magistrate whispered like a dark incantation.

“Hector, it’s not too late. Hear me.”

“I hear only the truth,” I shot back.

Socrates smiled then—an ironic, eternal smile that echoed beyond mortal sound. His voice, calm yet sharp, pierced the tension: “If you had labored truly, magistrate, your juries would have rendered their verdict ere the day’s end.”

“When magistrates speak, sophists fall silent,” snarled the chief magistrate.

“Not Socrates,” the old man replied, voice steady as the mountains.

“It has already been prophesied,” the magistrate hissed.

“You spoke unwisely, sir. The shadows will not forget,” I warned.

“He is Athens’ greatest treasure, though unrecognized,” I added, the words like thunder in the silent court.

“Treasure?” he scoffed. “Then justice is but a whisper when coin speaks loudest. Justice will not come.”

He mocked the philosopher’s disciples—those who bore his words like torches through the Agora, unsettling the complacent.

But Socrates would not be silenced.

“If a just man foretells his doom,” he declared, voice ringing like a clarion, “better to imprison himself than let the guilty roam free.”

Fear flickered in his eyes—fear not of death, but of ignorance that blinds even the sharpest minds.

The orators lined up like statues—pompous, imperious—awaiting their moment, but the sun god himself remained silent, witnessing destinies unfold beneath his eternal gaze.

“My ghost will haunt you, Mellitus of Pithus, and exile you from Athens’ very soul,” Socrates intoned, a spectral verdict that sent a shudder through the chamber.

Mellitus, stunned, clutched at verses for defense—a poet wielding words as swords.

“My beloved friends,” Socrates added, “will inscribe my tale upon the scrolls of time. For this, I am grateful.”

I recalled Plato’s scorn: “No poet of Athens may enter philosophy’s sacred city.”

Eager, I wished to interject, “Oh young master, you crown the philosopher king, yet banish the poet’s song. If you despise Mellitus, then he is no poet. And if you scorn Aristophanes, he is not all poetry.”

Socrates, ever the jester of fate, said with a sharp smile, “Mellitus, with his beak-like nose, straight hair, and ragged beard, deserves a fair trial nonetheless.”

“You dared corrupt our youth’s minds—and now send your messages to eternity.”

“I am sentenced before your verdict, as fate decrees,” Socrates declared, jubilant, as if death were a triumph, not a doom.

“Can you not distinguish between Socrates and charlatans?” the chief magistrate thundered, burying his face in his hands, defeated before the storm.

                                                            ***

We roared our defiance, a thunderous chorus of mortal wills clashing against the immovable tide of fate. Yet, no matter how fierce our cries, no force could alter the relentless path set before us.

“That,” Plato proclaimed, his voice resonant as if echoing from the very heights of Olympus, “is the eternal paradox that binds mankind. Speak, Master, speak — rend the veil of silence that suffocates us.”

“Who is Anytus’s son?” Socrates challenged the assembly, his words slicing through the heavy air. “What is democracy but a fragile, fleeting dream? Tyrannies, gods, corruption — you accuse me of these shadows, yet where was your voice through those long, silent years? Is this but a new act in the ceaseless play of human folly?”

“Can the people of Athens forgive Critias, that specter of tyranny and violence? To forgive — ah, that would be the highest virtue a mortal could embody, a sacrifice greater than any blood spilled on the altar of power.”

“This is my creed, as philosopher and seeker of truth, even if condemned for holding it. The divine fire of philosophy, gifted to me by the gods themselves, I have given freely to you, children of Hellas. By Zeus, I swear I have never concealed even the smallest shard of truth from your eyes.”

“For the sake of truth, I have wrestled with darkness, sacrificed my soul, and battled relentless tides of ignorance for many, many years.”

His solemn oath ignited a radiant beacon within my mind — a revelation kindled by divine fire.

“I am learning, Aspasia,” I whispered, the flame of understanding flickering faintly in the encroaching shadows.

“Facing them here, son, will break many spirits,” Aspasia murmured softly, her voice heavy with foreboding.

“But I am ready,” I replied, feeling the resolve harden within my veins like tempered steel.

“Let the lowliest prophet rise above the throng, shatter their false idols,” I cried with sacred fervor, my voice trembling beneath the crushing weight of destiny.

“It is the end of Socrates the man,” he declared with noble serenity, “but not the end of philosophy’s immortal flame.”

Then, like shadowed leviathans summoned by some dark will, the guards surged forward, separating Socrates from his disciples — driving away those who dared follow the path of wisdom. But though they sought to silence the man, the light of truth, the eternal flame of philosophy, would never be extinguished.

                  

                        ***

The jurors clamored, voices like thunder rolling through the stony court, railing against the blatant attempt of the litigants to shackle Socrates before he even spoke.
“We will not be ensnared by his silver-tongued sophistry!” the chief magistrate thundered, his gavel like a lightning bolt. He nodded sharply to the first litigant, commanding him to read the accusation once more—after they had already torn me apart with venomous words.

“By the sacred trust vested in us to safeguard the city’s soul and the everyday lives of its citizens,” began the first litigant with grim gravity, “we respond to the grievous charges laid by the esteemed Mellitus and others against the citizen Socrates. They allege that this man has undermined the very foundations of our polis, by casting doubt upon our gods, corrupting the youth, and consorting dangerously close to men like Critias and Alcibiades—heralds of chaos and ruin.”

The formal accusations, phrased with cold precision by Socrates himself in past discourses, were flung like fiery arrows across the court. The voices of Mellitus, Anytus, and Lycon rose in a fierce chorus, mingling with the jeers and growls of the jurors—a tumultuous storm of condemnation and reluctant assent sweeping the marble halls.

Then, as if summoned by the gods themselves, the second litigant rose, his voice a thunderclap that silenced the chaos:
“This man transcends their petty lies! He has borne hardship like no other, withstood hunger and cold as a rock endures the sea’s wrath. Never has he turned from a plea for aid, never ceased his relentless pursuit of virtue, nor shied from illuminating every shadow of our lives. He who hears the divine sign within and teaches us to choose wisely in all affairs—that man is no corrupter, but Athens’ own steadfast guide.”

“Is it then Socrates’ duty to defend himself?” the first litigant snarled, suspicion still dripping from his words.

No one opposed. The court held its breath. Socrates stepped forward, calm as the still waters of the Ilissus.
“You have seen me often in the Agora,” he said simply.

“Oh, good man, they will not welcome you there any longer,” I called out, voice thick with warning.

He smiled, a light flickering in his weary eyes. “I miss my Agora, truly.”

“I stand with Plato, whose loyalty to truth surpasses even that of Socrates himself, but I reject utterly those—Mellitus, Anytus, Lycon—who, blinded by their own selfish venom, poison the very essence of justice in Athens,” he continued. “Athenians, addicted to gossip and scandal, claim I commit an injustice by questioning what lies beneath the earth and above the sky—was that not a jest from Aristophanes? By Zeus, we were once comrades.”

The first litigant snarled, “We will not let this sophist twist reality with his honeyed words.”

The second replied firmly, “Every citizen has the right to speak.”

“But not Socrates,” growled the chief magistrate.

“Hector was silenced for less,” I muttered, recalling my own fate.

“What do you expect from this court?” I asked aloud.

“Silence this man!” came the chorus.

“Why?” I pressed.

“Because he will speak until the world ends.”

“Let him speak,” I said, defiance in my voice.

“Only when the time is ripe,” the magistrate snapped.

While Socrates engaged in what seemed a fruitless debate, the jurors calmly found moments to drop their ballots into the amphorae, sealing destinies in the shadows of justice. And yet, the verdict remained unspoken, suspended like a blade above the philosopher’s head.

As Socrates poised to lay bare the failings of Athens, his voice rang out, heavy with sorrow and righteous indignation:
“I would blame you for nothing more than I blame you now—for your ingratitude, your cruel turning away from me, your failure to see the damage wrought by politics upon the bonds of friendship.”

I knew, deep in my soul, the master heard the murmurs, the spiteful laughter, the restless eyes locked on the wooden amphora that held his fate. The breath of the city held still. The gods themselves seemed to lean forward, watching.

                          ***

---

The trial drew its last breath. The litigants ascended the high stone of the forum like priests climbing an altar, and with trembling hands they reached into the two sacred amphorae—those silent urns of fate—under the fixed, impassive gaze of the jurors.

I knew then.
Socrates had been wrong.
They had carved his doom long before he first refused to trade wisdom for a silver drachma. His death was a scroll already written, its seal pressed with the fingerprints of fear, pride, and the corruption of reason.

I prepared myself for a sacrifice greater than any blood offering upon Apollo's altar.
And I wept—sincerely, helplessly—as though mourning the very spirit of mankind.
At that hour, I believed without shadow or flaw that Socrates was the purest soul ever to tread the dust of this world.

"Stand him up! Let him stand like a lion before Olympus!" I begged Aspasia, my voice cracking beneath the weight of justice miscarried.

But she whispered back with bitter grace,
"He shall sit in the presence of Zeus, child… But the gods, you see, are jealous of men who become more divine than they ever were."

I turned on her, cruel with anguish.
"Then why did you come here, Aspasia? To see this desecration?"

Her voice, no louder than the rustle of a fig leaf:
"I did not come, Hector. Not truly. I have been mourning this moment since before you were born."

Not one god of Athens dared adopt Socrates.
They smiled from the clouds and watched him with envy, not love.
"Fetch a throne for the little god," they sneered among themselves.
Had he reached Olympus, he would have taught them too.

I should have begged Aspasia to betray the heavens,
to speak the secrets of divine politics—
But the verdict had already been etched in eternity.

They sealed the scroll in the archives of the gods and spoke thus:
"If we gave Socrates more time, he would unearth his innocence,
and then—then the Law would stand naked and obsolete."

And beneath their decree, they inscribed a final benediction:
"Lords of Athens, you have composed a verdict fit not for the man Socrates, but for the fear he awakened in you."

........................................................****

---

“Did you not put Socrates the Sophist to death, my fellow citizens?” said a man called Aeschines. He was not Aeschines of Sphettus, Socrates’ follower, but a man drawn by the scent of power and the theatre of blood.

“Are you seeking death or justice, sir?” said Plato, his voice calm but carved from the bones of reason.

“I make no distinction anymore, son of Ariston,” Aeschines replied.

I lost everything—my name, my honor, my place in the city’s light. They stripped me bare, cast me into the shadows where only ghosts and memories dare to tread. But the word—the sacred, unbreakable word of Socrates—was seared into my blood, etched in silence deeper than any stone, carried like a flame whispered on the wind.

Through fire and exile, through betrayal and blood, through nights when hope seemed crushed beneath the weight of tyranny—I carried it. Passed it hand to hand, breath to breath, soul to soul, across the unyielding march of generations.

Because some truths are immortal. Some fires never die.

Until the day comes—when the world itself will tremble, and the silent word will roar:
“The time has come.”

“Then you make no distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice?”

“What are you saying, boy?”

“I’m saying it’s surprising they haven’t yet crowned you Chief Justice of Athens.”

“We have the verdict on its way,” muttered an old juror, one foot already in Hades. “It won’t be long.”

Strange indeed would it be, Socrates said softly, if I, knowing I am to die, held my tongue now. Someday, you will learn to adapt my words for justice—when justice finally has a voice, not just a face.

The verdict fell like a second thunder on a summer day, unexpected even in its certainty. I bowed and touched the ground near Socrates’ sandaled feet, as if seeking warmth from the ashes of the sacred.

“Aspasia’s son?” he asked. He looked into me as if reading something buried under centuries of shame.

“Rise up, sir,” he said. “You are a noble man.” And he blessed me simply, like a father, not a god.

“I will never forget this moment,” I whispered like a sinner in a temple.

“Your devotion to duty is truly blessed.”

“Grateful. I am grateful.”

“Birds of a feather,” he smiled, not without sadness. “Pericles, Pyrilampes, and myself. Now you. Hector. Plato. Xenophon. And the lads who still carry fire in their hearts.”

“I have my last words,” he said aloud.

“Let Socrates speak,” the judges answered, as if the law itself had grown weary of pretending.

“O Athenians,” he said, his voice both naked and divine, “I speak not as a sophist but with the language of the Agora. Chaerephon the brave is dead. His brother still lives, and he can confirm what the Pythia at Delphi once said: no man is wiser than Socrates.”

He paused and gazed over their faces like a shepherd counting sheep in a burning field.

“They accuse me of offending poets, positions, and rhetoric,” he said. “Meletus, do you care for the youth?”

“Yes,” Meletus answered.

“Then who improves them?”

“The laws.”

“Who understands the laws?”

“The judges.”

“And they teach?”

“They do.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“And the audience?”

“Yes.”

“And the senators?”

“Yes.”

“Then all Athenians improve the youth—except me?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I alone corrupt them, and all others save them?”

“Yes.”

“Do I not believe in the sun or the moon?”

“No.”

“They are stone and earth, you say?”

“You deny all gods.”

“You say I believe in none?”

“I am certain you don’t believe even yourself.”

“Let me die now, like Achilles said, if fate commands it,” said Socrates. “I consider only whether what I do is just.”

I thought the votes against me would be more. O men of Athens, clearly, this was always my end. I forgive you—but remember this: a punishment greater than mine will find you, and it will not be delivered by any god.

To those who would have acquitted me—stay. Let me say what remains. The oracle gave no sign. My soul is calm. The accusers have done me no harm.

We go our ways: I to death, and you to life. Which is better, only the gods know.

And with that, he surrendered himself to the guards.

He walked with them. And behind him, his apostles followed as if stepping behind the sun. Xanthippe wept like all of Greece weeping through one throat.

I was not of them—but I followed. Like an orphan chasing a name I never truly earned.

Children threw stones at me. I did not resist.

“Let them wash the sin of the city,” I said.

The guards swore. They pushed the mob away. But I remained. “Make no siege around me,” I said. “I am as hard as you, soldier.”

Then the pain—divine, inexplicable—struck like lightning up my bones.

Socrates turned and saw. He had known. He always knew.

“I forgive you, son of Pericles,” he said.

“Grateful. I am grateful.”

“Have you ever doubted Zeus?” I asked.

“I live under Zeus—magnificent, delightful Zeus,” he said. “But the gods lack virtue. They reflect us. I speak of them only to weigh the Magistrates' Law. Justice must be mended endlessly—even God is incomplete.”

His face turned pink with blood, and then pale like dawn.

“If the gods mocked me—and surely they did—they mocked themselves. Their scandals will echo through all time.”

I stood dumb. He saw my doubt.

“Don’t be surprised,” he said. “They are our reflection.”

People veered away from him, even as he walked silently to his death.

“Everyone fears truth,” he said.

“I don’t,” I said. I was no longer the Hector of Athens. I was just a man. A man with nothing to protect except the truth.

“I fear the gods are jealous,” I said.

“They are.”

Then the guards asked me to leave.

I lingered, watching the sun lower itself over Athens like a god bowing out of shame.

Then I broke. I ran. I stopped him. No one permitted me. I did not ask.

“Have you defeated them, master?” I asked.

He smiled—not as victor or vanquished—but as one who had passed through both.

“That is it. That it is,” he said. “We stole the Prime Logos, Pericles.”

“Prime… Logos?” I stammered.

“Yes. My word. My secret. Keep it. Hide it. Guard it in the only vault that cannot be robbed—your soul.”

“I will. I do. I promise.”

He knew the words would live safer in me than in any scroll.

“Keep the secrecy, sealed in your heart. Wherever you go, whatever you do. Until the time comes.”

Thus, I lost opportunity to restore my name and fortune , however, I passed the sacred word of Socrates the Great  to my offspring, descending with them , ever since, generation after generation until he says. 'The time has come.’"

The End

*Hector son of Zeus, Prickles and Aspasia.

* Whore.

*From Apology.

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PARRAMATTA RIVER

     Parramatta River

               
Oh, dear breeze of the river,              
Heavenly wind of,
 The  left brink of the milky way
Embrace mine disgraceful  bones ,
-Of a bleeding dinosaur on  thy bank,
 Parramatta              

Having, though  blurred  sights ,
Dared  once  to take of to paradise,  
 But was trapped in cages of bones
 Compass,  astrolabe - prayers,
None  of such  I had,
williwaw, catch my sails.


Your goddess is on you,  River.      
Grasp roots of the cruelest  season,
And wash  the ancient   bones and let
Stream  kiss the estuary

Drag   me to the harbor,
A kin  to the  ocean , and
Then,  sweep up  the chocking ashes,
the leftover  of forests and  bushes,

Lets be mixed up brutally,
 like some  sibling- beasts.
 And  having fatal  crushes on each other
regardless of the cracks of bare materials;
  bones,  hearts ... eyes,
and things  dried off tears. .

Let her, indeed, wash me
 peacefully with the softest  hands
And prepares my corpse, and            
Lays me down  with other  species,
all  aimless remains  of  charms,
Or fallen  stars -  fallen lovers,
 who drunk oils and  had eels.

Then let me lie down,
And draw with broken fingers;
 lines and ancient symbols  to read each other ,
Squeaking in time of  revelation like wolves
 Full of memoirs ,  full of glory
Then, the  triumph is yours, River.
                     
                                 *********
‘The wrecked  man is from the  ancient world,
 He was your sibling ,
Having roots mixed with bones of Thames’ banks ,
Sediments of Euphrates and remains of old tribes,
wedged-shaped  scripts
Stylus pen  and a kiln to fire on  tablets ,
Old letters,snakes,  verses, parchments and all lies,
Lost gods of ancient times,
 Prometheus the Greek,
Prophets of Barsom and Cedar and Olive trees !
                                   
                                                   ******

“I am setting sail for the havens of the blest to seek the wise sayings of great Siro, --Vergilius--  ”
‘Oh, little  man, Siro  was old ,’ the  river shrieked.
 I looked for logogram in  the  footprints,
Traces of  Homer the Great,  Odysseus’,  
Hector , and the dead sibling of Gelgamish.
Pursued  so many  avenues of appeal,
But, none of them  surface the water, River. .
                      *******

Drift me , River, with thy stream  to
The harbor , the ocean. where  your name and mine
Will vanish  for good,
 Williwaw, catch my sails,
It is the time to find out ,
What  a passer by I was
 Had no tongue, and  had no  real  shape’  .






                                         
                                                   
                                         ******
 Dreadful , still flowing to the ocean ,
 So proud ,so sweet and so sad,
under so many bitches bridges ,
Oh, Lord  of all times,
You have got beauties of all rivers,
 Yet,  rubbish dump you has been,
 Behold tears of virgins,
Clay Cliff, Iron Cove , Subico , Vineyard creek,
the solid metal of  bridges,
and myself.
Oh, lord  of all times,
You are so gray, so sensible, and so invisible ,
 forgotten like a wrecked man stands on  your bank,
Laden with so heavy encyclopedia of ethic ,
Overhearing  the cold  breathing of the city,
  On the edge, on the brink of his  destiny ,
Hearing the massive step of trains, cars and pedestrian, screaming
‘Excessive  brassy jeering laughter of men and women
Playing with rusted- words;
Adorable, fabulous, and marvelous,
where meaningless verdicts  are still
Manipulating tears for love and  lies to Jesus.
                                      ********
Nevertheless,
Despite drought  and wastes
I sung, midst hopeless species,
Screaming, unto God
“No one feels me, no one kisses me.”
Then, right  there, marvelously ,
 Heard my echo, midst the  Wuthering wind, breathing ,
I am  not a man ,
 I am  but a great  river of Parramaata.”
                 




    VERSION 2

Parramatta River

Oh, dear breeze of the river,
Heavenly wind from
The left brink of the Milky Way—
Embrace my disgraceful bones,
The bleeding bones
Of a dinosaur on your banks,
Parramatta.

Though blurred in sight,
I once dared to ascend to paradise,
But was trapped in cages of bone.
Compass, astrolabe—prayers—
None of these I had.
Williwaw, catch my sails.

Your goddess rests upon you, River.
Grasp the roots of the cruelest season,
Wash the ancient bones clean,
Let your stream kiss the estuary.

Drag me to the harbor—
A kin to the ocean—
Then sweep away the choking ashes,
Leftovers of forests and bushes.

Let us mix, brutally,
Like sibling beasts
With fatal crushes on one another,
Regardless of the fractures in bare matter—
Bones, hearts… eyes—
All dried of tears.

Let her wash me,
Peacefully,
With the softest hands,
Prepare my corpse,
And lay me down beside other species—
The aimless remains of charms,
Of fallen stars,
Of fallen lovers
Who drank oil
And swallowed eels.

Then let me lie down
And draw, with broken fingers,
Lines and ancient symbols—
To read each other’s wounds.
Let us squeak in the hour of revelation, like wolves
Full of memoir, full of glory.
Then the triumph is yours, River.

---

***
“The wrecked man is from the ancient world.
He was your sibling,
His roots mixed with the bones of Thames’ banks,
Sediments of Euphrates,
Remains of old tribes,
Wedge-shaped scripts,
A stylus and kiln for firing clay tablets,
Old letters, snakes, verses, parchments, and lies—
Lost gods of ancient times:
Prometheus the Greek,
Prophets of Barsom,
Cedar and olive trees!”

---

“I am setting sail for the havens of the blest,
To seek the wise sayings of great Siro.”
—Vergilius

“Oh, little man, Siro was old,” the river shrieked.
I searched for logograms in footprints,
Traces of Homer the Great,
Of Odysseus,
Hector,
And the dead sibling of Gilgamesh.
I pursued many avenues of appeal,
But none surfaced the water, River.

---

***
Drift me, River, with your stream,
To the harbor, the ocean—
Where your name and mine
Will vanish for good.
Williwaw, catch my sails.
It is time to find out
What kind of passerby I was—
Tongueless,
Shapeless.

---

***
Dreadful, still flowing to the ocean,
So proud, so sweet, so sad,
Under so many bitter bridges.
Oh, Lord of all times,
You’ve gathered the beauty of all rivers,
Yet have become a rubbish dump.

Behold the tears of virgins:
Clay Cliff, Iron Cove, Subiaco, Vineyard Creek,
The solid metals of bridges—
And myself.

Oh, Lord of all times,
You are gray, sensible, and invisible—
Forgotten, like a wrecked man on your bank,
Laden with the encyclopedia of ethics,
Overhearing the cold breath of the city
At the edge,
On the brink of his destiny,
Hearing the massive steps of trains, cars, and people,
All screaming:

“Excessive, brassy laughter of men and women,
Playing with rusted words:
Adorable, fabulous, marvelous.”

Where meaningless verdicts still
Manipulate tears for love,
And lies for Jesus.

---

***
Nevertheless,
Despite drought and waste,
I sang—
Amidst hopeless species—
Crying unto God:
“No one feels me.
No one kisses me.”

Then, right there, marvelously,
I heard my echo—
Amidst the wuthering wind—
Breathing:

“I am not a man.
I am the great river of Parramatta.”

        

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WHAT IS MANNA?

On an essay. What Was Manna?written by Prof. Roger Wotton, in UCL in UK

Manna is a physical entity, depicted as a supernatural origin in the Old Testament . This physical entity has some characteristics that have been mentioned in the Bible. Book of Number, The most crucial statement about the manna is. ‘Arriving with the dew during the night,’ Probably,the environment approach provide the condition for the chemical formation of the entity . Exodus adds that manna was comparable to hoarfrost in size, similarly had to be collected before it was melted by the heat of the sun , and was white like coriander seed in color. after collecting it may become like bdellium.

The Holly text is reciting, in the time when Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness for so many years, and they built this unique relation with a material fell down on the way they passed through. They called it Manna. (Manna, obviously, in Hebrew language , is some thing bestowed, and has a heavenly origin.) Some dictionaries state the definition in this way: An ash tree which exudes a sweet edible gum (manna) from its branches when they are damaged, native to Southern Europe and South West Asia. But, this way of bestowing would not fascinate any mind, if it was not heavenly originated.

But, in considering manna not heavenly originated, yet, as a falling material from the sky, would be ranked such as rain or snow. Whilst storms and Tornados are less heavenly ranked, and if they carried manna away with all kinds of dirt, eventually would make a mixture of manna and all kind of dirt, and manna would disappear midst the huge amount of dirt . ( Here, according to my knowledge, in counting all regions with extreme storm around the world, no traces of manna could be found.)

Tornado, or the Khamsin or khamasin wind would not help the formation of Manna , on contrary it is against the congregating of the particles of the material. In Egypt, Khamsin usually arrives in April but occasionally occur in March and May, carrying great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts, with a speed up to 140 kilometers per hour. The khamasin wind is hot and dry and dusty far different from ‘Arriving with the dew during the night.’

During Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign the French soldiers had a hard time with Khamsin: when the storm appeared "As a blood-stint in the distant sky", the natives went to take cover, while the French "Did not react until it was too late, then choked and fainted in the blinding, suffocating walls of dust, instead of falling of Manna.

How Moses and Herron behaved at Sinai during Khamasin? Probably not like Napoleon’s soldiers, since they were familiar with Khamasin.

Personally I crossed Sinai and for a long time have being thinking about Manna- Sinai, and came to a conclusion, if Manna fell down for Israelite at that time, it would never falls on Sinai of this new earth environment, because there is no manna’s primal material above Sinai now and long time ago, to proceed the process of creation of the main component of that terrestrial featured -sky entity.(Simply sugar.) The main component of Manna.

Therefore, the crucial question would be , what are sugar’s components ? Definitely, the simplest chemical structure of sugar is made of Hydrogen, Oxygen, and carbon Monosaccharides are the simple sugar, the most important is glucose. Almost all sugars have the formula CnH2nOn (n is between 3 and 7). Glucose formula is C6H12O6. Therefore for each molecules we need carbon, hydrogen, oxygen in the ratio n/2n/n. in a specific arrangement to make sugar not lipid.

In answering the question. Is there a natural plant in the sky producing such kind of sugar ? Definitely there is such a plant… higher or in several hundred meters above the sea level, where in the space a specific area with the environment of temperature, pressure, and humidity etc, working in harmony, in a specific area, definitely becomes the imaginary plant of manna.

Now, the question is: is not air made of nitrogen , oxygen hydrogen carbon and all other gases and also water vapor, and all together are exposed to a wide range of pressure and temperature in the sky somewhere above some regions. (Personally watched the weather during falling Manna {Gezo] on Kurdistan heights, it is known for everyone there, how to collect the manna . I also read about manna production of Terengin in Iran. Terengin may be somehow a different type, of gezo forming in lower temperature, or under different pressure .

Therefore, in conclusion , the most reliable theory is: the formation of the physical entity manna is depending on the existing of the basic component of sugar in Air {Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen , with possibility being mixed with other particles , or materials during its local journey, like rain or hail.). All this under a special condition: required temperature, special pressure, and humidity or even a magic thunder or even catalysts. Researches could be conducted for proving the origin of manna practically in some places . A simple design depending on balloons left on deferent heights with sensors watching the formation of the manna in a such environment could answer all our questions.

My warm thanks.

Best Regards
Kay H.

3
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REMAINS OF 1988

KAY  Hay

The years reel by—a filmstrip unravelling, not forward but into itself, trapping me in an eternal rewind where time gnaws its own edges. A flashing scene erupts, a moment of rupture: chaos, motion, voices colliding in the airport’s endless churn, a maelstrom of existence that screams without sound. And then—gravity, not a force but a hunger, wrenching my gaze, snagging my entire being on something small, yet impossibly heavy: A bunch of paper scraps. Abandoned? No—waiting, their presence deliberate, an event horizon demanding collapse, pulling reality into their orbit. Fate? Probability? No. This is something else—preordained yet lawless, a paradox that mocks divinity’s grasp. I pick them up, and the world tilts, almost imperceptibly, as if creation itself stumbles. Somewhere, someone watches: a lost sibling with their voice a female tone, both alien and mine; a shadow folded between dimensions, their pulse of recognition sourceless, a vibration that shatters my marrow. My senses sharpen—doglike in their hunger, sniffing, clawing at the air—but no matter how deeply I inhale, how feverishly I scan the sea of faces, the author is not there. Or perhaps they are too much there, so vast they slip past the limits of space, time, even the divine, a presence that burns through eternity’s veil. The scraps are no mere paper—they pulse, alive with glyphs that writhe, each mark a wound in existence, rewriting itself before I can blink. I do what must be done, though I resist; they come to me, a treasure unwanted but irresistible, pulling me like matter bends toward the singularity. The airport is no longer a place but a fracture, its corridors looping into voids, its clocks spitting ash. Faces flicker—each a shard of the sibling, each a mirage, dissolving as I reach. I am feral, my senses razor-sharp yet blind, chasing a trail that erases itself. I think abnormally—not by choice, not by curiosity, but by their inescapable demand. My journey, however, came to the end.

My mind fractured under their weight, even under the gravity of the letter’s incomplete content —my fear of incompleteness grew, swelled, and consumed me. 

I fell ill, indeed.

A year passes—or forever, for time splinters in their glare—deciphering them, unearthing a story never meant to be told, a narrative that devours its own meaning. Each scrap tells a lie that is truth: of a sibling who wove the first thread of reality, then cut it; of a love that drowned the cosmos in its own tears. The story shifts, a labyrinth with no walls, growing thorns, then wings, then nothing—only to reform sharper, heavier, hungrier.. The scraps demand I weave them, but they defy thread. I bind them with will, with screams, each stitch birthing a universe that implodes. The story I uncover is a blasphemy against all that is: it speaks, then denies its voice; it exists, then unmakes existence. I send it spiralling outward, calling across the abyss—not for answer, but to wound eternity itself. The scraps tremble, multiply, scatter into new codices, each a void spawning voids. The silence that follows roars with absence. I am no longer myself—I am the scraps, the unravelling, the abyss. And somewhere, beyond the divine’s broken reach, the sibling’s shadow hums a song that ends all songs.

“No matter how cruel, how rootless I am—

My mysterious lady, my ever-wondrous spectre—

You orbit me like a dead sun, a thing that should not shine, but does.

Forgive me. I’m sorry for sharing your memory.

And yet, they say every great story needs a rogue Jonah.

I am yours.”

Fragments of the Past

Against fate itself, I pieced together the remnants of a soul. Each page was a wound, each line a scar. Fifty-seven weathered sheets, trembling with the weight of a life shattered—but unbroken. Her courage lay before me: raw, unburied, incandescent with pain.

"I found myself amidst the ruins of my mother.

My fingers traced the brittle contours of her skull,

the fragile architecture of memory itself.

Bone to dust, dust to whispers—I listened to what remained.

But duty called like a storm without mercy,

dragging me into the abyss of night.

I left her behind—her cursed shell

abandoned to a thousand unseen eyes."

—[Unreadable paragraphs.]

"Shepherds with no faces led me

to the edge of a great valley.

They left me there—nameless—among

the desolate rocks of the Heights,

with only my daughter clinging to the silence.

'To whomever you may be,'

I murmured into the void,

'my deepest gratitude,

dear dearest, dearest…’"

I whisper, almost without knowing:

“Whoever you were, I am grateful. Dear dearest, dearest…”

1988.

I remember. And I say:

I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And nothing stains that absolute truth.

[—Unreadable paragraph.]

"When they threw my brother from the sky,

I saw his eyes flash—twin stars, wide and disbelieving.

The soldiers had found him where he lay,

bleeding into the battlefield,

and they took him not as a prisoner, not as a man,

but as an experiment.

A body to be tested. A lesson to be taught.

They dragged him to the plane,

flew him high above his land,

and cast him into the void."

"As he fell, the sky itself split with laughter.

The soldiers screamed after him,

their voices jagged with mockery:

‘These are your rocks, bastard. Not ours.

You think so, bastard? You are dreaming.’"

And the rocks received him—

like a shapeless, sacred sacrifice,

offered without altar, without prayer.

(1986)

"Aftermath. Aftermath."

"I survived. A decade passed—then another.
Al-Anfal came and went, and still... I remained."

—More words, scribbled into oblivion.

"A boy stepped forward—beautiful in a way only sorrow can shape.
His face was carved from the gentlest grief.
Lips trembling, eyes shining,
his voice barely a breath beneath the weight of the years."

“Mother.”

[Many words were missing.]

"I felt it. That shape—that frame—
the outline of an angel sculpted by the agony of waiting.
He walked with such grace, such pride,
I nearly screamed: ‘The only man left in the family.’
I stood frozen."

‘Mother, I have searched for you for so long.’

‘Touch his face. Hold him. Kiss him,’
my friend wept beside me.
But I just stood there—shaking,
a wretched creature,
my mind emptied, my tongue dead in my mouth.
‘You can. You can,’ my friend cried again."

(Much of what follows is lost.)

"God—torture me not, I beg you.
I beg you, Almighty."

"I was speaking to no one. To the silence.
And then he said:
‘I always kept your picture with me.’"

1999.

Absolute Motherhood

What the soul knows before the mind surrenders

(Many words are missing. Torn. Buried. Burned.)

“He is not your son. He is not your son.”

"Do not get carried away with your longing," they warned.

"These are dangerous times. One must be careful."

“O Golden Heights.”

“Golden breeding.”

“My tribe.”

[—Words scratched out, erased by trembling hands.]

"You let a stranger into your house."

"Goddamn," I whispered—

and even as the curse left my lips,

it turned to ash in my mouth.

I wanted to take it back.

I wanted to die for saying it.

"Listen to no man," my friend wept.

"He has your eyes. Your lips. Your silence.

Are you blind, or only broken?"

But I had no one.

No roots. No blood to trust.

No voice except the scream that never came.

And yet—truth does not ask.

Truth does not linger awkwardly .

It arrives like thunder without storm,

like birth without warning.

It rose—not from logic,

not from memory,

but from something older than either:

the fangs of my heart,

the marrow of my vanished soul,

the blind, brutal certainty

that lives in all who have buried too much to doubt.

I dragged his face out of the abyss—

not with hands, but with grief.

Not with proof, but with fire.

And as the shape of him reassembled

in the ruins of my knowing,

I no longer needed to wonder.

"If truth must be spoken," I said,

"then carve it into the sky:

He is my son.

He is the truth."

From that moment on,

there was nothing left to say.

Only this:

“The graveyard is no place for lies.”

I speak to paper because

there is no one left to listen.

And even silence deserves a witness.

(2000.)

                                                                          

                                                                            ***
     

My Past in Exile

The past is a venom coursing through me…

(Missing word.)

The past is not behind me. It lives inside me—buried in the marrow of my bones. It coils at the centre of who I am, watching through my skin, waiting. It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t die. It simply waits. With every breath, I take in the dust of forgotten gods. I carry the memory of a fallen divinity—one bound in chains, shackled not by heaven but by the weight of us. He remains among us, and I say to him, gently: Farewell. I ask my own ego to destroy him. To break the chains even a god could not escape.

“Creep. Creep out,” I say.

(Many words are missing.)

I walk through memory. Not through a place, but through a wound. My town is no longer a town—it’s a scar, a breath of history trapped in stone. The air carries the weight of voices that will never be silenced. I walk deeper, along the Walk of Death, where echoes answer only themselves.

We were fools. All of us. Digging up graves, searching for meaning in bones. Unable to leave the dead alone.

“Well,” I say, quietly. “Yes.”

But in the silence of my own mind, something else stirs:

Begin the journey to the farthest edge of existence.

That sentence has lived in me for years. I’ve repeated it over and over, until I stood at the place where past and future collide. There, where our eyes meet the shadows of those who came before, we speak without words—like those who lived before time was carved into calendars.

“You cannot leave,” they tell me. “You belong to our fate. You are bound to us.” I place a hand on my chest. My heart beats fast. Unsettled. Restless.“But you cast me out,” I say. “I wanted only a place to rest. Somewhere beyond all this.”                                                      “I let go,” I tell them. “Of the rules. Of the weight. Of the traditions you said would save me.” They look at me and say, “You’ve been misled.”

“No,” I answer. “I’ve finally seen the truth.”

“Then you’ve given up,” they reply.

“I haven’t,” I say. “I’ve chosen to leave.”

“And what of your family? Will you abandon their memory?” My voice does not shake.

“My family lives among the dead.”

(Words scratched out.)

(Missing words.)

A Ghost Beside Me

The season’s breath stirred before its time, a whisper of upheaval. The wind awoke with a sudden hunger, tearing through the streets, unbalancing the steps of young scholars who did not yet know what it meant to fear. Along Pretoria Road, the towering sentinels of nature swayed—a slow, knowing rhythm—casting off their golden robes in a final, sorrowful dance. Their seeds scattered, like the echoes of my unspoken desires, drifting down the same paths my ancestors once walked, carried by invisible hands.

Then, the storm came.

It did not arrive—it descended. It crashed upon the earth, tore through the roadside sanctuaries, and roared into the hills like a god unchained. The trees bent as if bowing to an unseen king. The sky split apart.

And then—

The fire.

It rose not from accident, nor from anger, but from inevitability. The bush ignited. Not a spark, not a flicker—but a devouring, an insatiable beast of flame.

It moved like vengeance unloosed, like prophecy fulfilled.

I shrieked into the chaos, my voice breaking against the wind. “Run, run, run!”

The children ran.

Their screams were ribbons in the smoke, unraveling into the air.

I stood still.

I stood still because I had seen this before.

My ghosts whispered beside me, their voices curling in the heat. They did not beg, nor weep, nor scream. They only watched.

For I had learned this truth: the past does not chase you; it stands and waits.

I turned away from the fire only to meet another—the one that smolders inside me. A quiet, merciless burning. The weight of grievances unspoken, justice unanswered. The world, vast and indifferent, offered no reprieve. Our rights—our most basic rights—were treated not as birthright but as a plea, as if to exist itself was an act of defiance.

“I am but a dweller of the mountains,” I say.

And they reply, “You dwell at the nadir of the rock.”

But I know the truth.

Even from the lowest stone, even from the deepest valley, I hear the voices of my people. And when their bones cry out, when the wind carries their grief to my ears, what choice is left to me but to mend what has been broken?

“Stop this folly,” they warn me.

And yet, my hands do not still.

For if no one else will gather the shattered souls of my kin, then who shall?

This is beyond divinity. It is beyond godhood. It is the raw force of something older than gods—something that does not bow, that does not plead, that simply is.

Does this strike the mark, or shall we carve it deeper?

---

I walked, endlessly, down the street—each step dissolving into the next, my thoughts unraveling like a serpent shedding its skin. A thousand paces deep, I found myself submerged in a world of fragrant lavender.

Lavender—the color of dusk’s last breath, the scent of ghosts who refuse to be buried.

The rain whispered its secrets against their trembling petals.

And above the imperial avenue, I drifted. Laden with memories sharp enough to wound. The season exhaled, and I swallowed its sorrow.

“You!” I shouted into the void.

“Even in deserts, you might meet a friend,” the echo replied.

“Hold on,” I murmured. But the words did not belong to me.

They came from him—his voice, thin and spectral, seeping through the mist of my wandering. My husband, my phantom, his poetry weaving through the silence, struggling to graft itself onto my flesh.

I should confess... I’ve never truly been free of him. I am but a futile scum, a whisper lost in the wind, squandering moments in life’s vanishing gleam.

“That might bring you back, dear,” he pleads, his voice a fragile bridge between worlds.

But I—the real one, the defiant one—pull away.

“Get out of my life,” I command.

And like a ghost, I dissolve. Like whispers swallowed by the storm.

With the wind, I flee. Beneath silver sheets of rain, he calls after me.

“Bring me back.”

“We are but strangers,” I reply, my words scattering like dying embers.

“I know,” he says. And then he is gone.

Trepidation coils around me like a noose as I await his arrival. Outside, the autumn night hums, thick with unseen hands. I stand before the old apartment window, the ancient balcony beneath my feet, the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressing into my spine.

I open my palms, sifting through gemstones—their facets swallowing the light, swallowing me. Each stone bears the faces of the dead, their stories etched in silent screams.

“Gemstones are God’s favored accessories,” he once told me, and I nearly believed him.

He, my husband. The man who walked between beauty and madness.

He named me Origin of Symmetries.

The beast that read Blake in the dark.

“What immortal hand could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

I, barely breathing, whisper— “Never let the shape of me deceive you. I was always the fire.”

“Agile, like Comte de Lautréamont,” he once called me. "Made of serpents, spite, and stars."

“You are not clear, my man,” I had laughed.

“I am. I am,” he had said. “Only to those who burn the same way.”

He meant me.

Years have collapsed into dust, and only now do I see—

The tiger’s frame was mine.

I, the brutalest beauty. The deadliest thing to ever bear a name. The woman they all wanted but never owned. The phantom that burned in the eyes of a thousand suitors.

“Three symmetry rows,” he said once.

Did he ensnare me with his spell?

“Stop it,” I whisper. “Stop it.”

“Bid me farewell, dear.”

“So long, dear. So long, dear Heights.”

And in that instant, the truth uncoiled like a beast from its den. My beauty—wild, unbroken—was his opium. He had conjured me from the marrow of his mind, shaped me in the forges of obsession, painted me into his youth like a curse he could not lift.

“One thousand years ago!” I screamed, unraveling.

“Oh, Great God, he has lived in me for so long!”

“Our frames, dear,” he murmured from beyond the veil.

“My love,” I sobbed.

“So cruel you were! How dare you die without me!”

You left me to carry our fire alone.

“Cruelest. Dearest. You are dead.”

And in the silence that followed, I heard it—

The beating of my heart, hammering out his name like a death knell.

I turned.

And there it was—

The abyss.

Deep. Infinite. Its eyes staring into mine, hollow as the sockets of time itself. And I stared back—not in fear, but in recognition.

I felt the weight of the years pressing upon me, suffocating me. I dulled my senses, dimmed the ember of my existence, let the shadows swallow me whole. In obscurity, I sought my final refuge—where truth and lies are no longer distinct, where the whispers of the past dissolve into the hush of the void.

“Your course of metamorphosing...” he once began—but the sentence was never finished.

“Have we been brought up for this?” I ask the darkness.

No answer comes.

Only silence.

Only the slow decay of memory.

.                  ****

A Ghost Beside Me
(Polished Version)

I sat alone beneath the quiet, cool dusk, where the discarded shells of tetrahedrons lay scattered—mute relics of forgotten symmetry, glittering beneath the pale burgundy glow of the past. Shadows stretched long, weaving themselves into the fabric of memory.

An old Greek master stood beside me, his hands worn by centuries, his chisel steady as the pulse of time. With measured strokes, he engraved the names of my beloved ones onto the stones’ faces, binding their essence to the eternal.

“Men forget,” he mused, his voice a whisper of marble dust, “but stones do not.”

He called me The Lady of Stones.

The name fit, though it was not mine to choose.

The man himself was a relic, a living fragment of history—ancient and tasteless without his stones.

“You are not Greek, are you?” he asked, his eyes flickering with amusement.

“No,” I answered, unwavering. “I am a stone.”

He regarded me in silence, then nodded.

“It is not bad to be a stone, my lady.”

“Aye,” I said, a slow smile curving my lips. “We are stones.”

In solitude, beneath the hush of the dying day, I traced the carved names with my fingertips. Their edges were sharp, but not as sharp as memory. The Greek master worked in silence, but his presence hummed like an unspoken truth.

“Forgetfulness befalls men, but stones endure,” he said at last, his words carving themselves into the marrow of my bones.

“Is it an everlasting curse?” he pondered aloud.

“No,” I murmured, my gaze lost in the endless procession of time. “It is unyielding.”

He looked at me, perplexed.

“Perplexed?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Yes,” he admitted, his chisel pausing midair.

I exhaled, slow and deliberate.

“Aye,” I agreed, nodding toward the inscriptions, “but in our stone-like hearts, truth never dies.”

When the great heights fell—when the towers crumbled and the sky wept—every breath bore the weight of untold sagas. Each heartbeat echoed with the cadence of celestial hymns, yet my story lay untouched, though rephrased by the hands of divine destiny-makers.

Suspicion clung to me like a shroud. I felt the eyes of eager scribes upon me, their quills poised, their ink thirsting for scandal. They coveted my downfall, seeking to weave my ruin into their wretched displays.

But I stood, immovable.

A bastion against their voyeuristic hunger.

Never would they drink from the wellspring of my sorrow.

Never would they revel in the spectacle of my demise.

I swore, with the last embers of my soul, that I would deny them the satisfaction. I would endure, unyielding, until the final curtain fell.

“Nothing there.”

The wind answered with silence.

Midnight unfurled its obsidian cloak.

I sat in the dim hush, counting the spectral visitors of my past—ghosts of friends, whispers of kin, the weight of eternity pressing upon me.

“Almighty,” I murmured to the night, “what could men of that time be doing now?”

“Nothing, baby. Nothing, nothing.”

His voice drifted to me, an echo from the abyss.

“Nothing?” I repeated, a shiver slipping down my spine. “God forbid.”

“Nothing is the pinnacle of tragedy.”

“I do nothing, darling.”

“I know.”

And in that silence, I understood.

Nothing is the weight of a forgotten name.
Nothing is the absence of a heartbeat once remembered.
Nothing is the void where love once lived.

And we, the stones, bear witness.

---

In my time, you could find them gathered—whether by the dunghills, along the barren creeks, or within the tranquil courtyard of the mosque, where silence reigned like an unseen scribe etching fate upon the earth. They stood, cloaked in dark or khaki coats, their rifles slung across weary shoulders, their fingers dancing over the beads of long, winding prayers. Their eyes, fixed upon the mist-shrouded canopy of the cemetery, traced the towering silhouettes of ancient oaks, as if seeking communion with the dead.

Amid the tendrils of smoke curling in the evening’s breath, they spoke—not in hushed whispers, but in the bold cadence of men who wove history into speech. Tales spun from silk and dust, half-truths laced with poetry, voices rich with sorrow and bravado alike.

The ghost beside me, draped in sardonic elegance, exhaled a knowing chuckle.

“Deceit,” he murmured, “has a voice too sweet to resist.”

I nodded.

“Indeed.”

For even the most deceitful words carried within them the weight of a thousand buried truths, their essence woven into the very fabric of our minds.

A swelling wave of a renowned symphony washed over the boulevard, drowning me in the relentless embrace of dusk. Tears welled in my eyes as I listened—not just to the music, but to the solitary resonance of my own existence.

I was the lonely snowgum.

Rooted yet adrift, swaying yet unmoved, my voice lost in the distant melodies that rose from the brothels lining the night’s edges. Their songs, ghostly and honeyed, wrapped around me like a net of sighs.

“I am a lonely snowgum,” murmured a voice within me.

“Indeed,” I whispered back, baring my soul to the unflinching stars.

Beneath their cold illumination, I gazed upon the street below—a flood of faces, a mosaic of a thousand races, shifting like tides beneath the neon glow.

Yet within this riot of beauty, I harbored an unspeakable sorrow.

For though I stood amidst them, I was marred, unseen, tainted by an invisible stain.

Caught between the call of freedom and the weight of sin, I curled into myself, tracing the scar upon my chest with trembling fingers.

“I saw a man.”

The man I saw was my husband’s friend.

“Aye,” he murmured, unfolding a scrap of poetry before me.

I thought him a genius.

Once, we too had been poets—bards, writers, singing like nightingales.

But that time had passed.

My husband had loved him.
And he had loved me.

He had struggled, desperate and silent, for a love he dared not name.

And today, with a hoarse voice, he recited a poem.

But the words failed him.

They failed the beauty they sought to capture.

And yet, the bastard had crossed the Pacific for me.

---

Victoria the Great

(A Lament for the Fractured Crown)

Victoria the Great,
Goddess of a bygone empire,
Once seized Zeus’s scepter
And ensnared a soul sharper than Winston.
Sovereign of her chivalry,
Enthroned upon the magic of history,
She filled the vastness of her own legend.

---

"Her majesty is frozen in the narrow sky of the city," he once mused. I used to sit beneath the queen’s monument, that cold bastion of imperial memory, and whisper the same old question to the air.

What might happen to us?

Had I revealed my secrets? I wasn’t sure. But something in his gaze—something in the tremor of his breath—unsettled me. There was a weight in him I didn’t trust. A depth I recognized too well.

He scared the hell out of me.

For a fleeting moment, I thought the beast before me might be my own man, returned not in flesh but in fire and fury. I knew, even then, that the bastard had begun his poem the moment he set foot here—this city, this shrine, this wound.

“I dare to say,” he murmured, “let’s reserve a place for you in the Genocide Museum.”

“Are you insane?” I snapped, startled by the venom of his tongue.

“No,” he said flatly. “I’m serious.”

“Get the hell out of here, now, bastard!”

“I’ll go,” he replied, calm as iron. “I’ll never return.”

“Wait, wait—” I spat, fury overtaking grief. “How dare you say that?”

“I am crucified,” he whispered.

“So what? We all have been crucified.”

He looked at me then, not as a man looks at a woman, but as history regards a wound. “We crossed oceans,” he said. “Spaces. Skies.”

“Alone?”

“No,” he replied. “With Ely Banister Soane.”

I was tired. Bone-deep. Spirit-tired.

“I’m tired too,” he added, as if echoing my breath.

And then the storm came.

It roared through the city’s underbelly like a god unchained, tearing beneath a bruised blue sky, until the wind crushed the city’s wings—her chest, her lungs, the last of her strength.

“Crushed her chest,” he said.

“Flattened the walls of her heart.”

“Stop it,” I hissed, voice sharp with rage. “They were children.”

The wind slammed against the trees, the schools, the windows, the doors we never locked. It shrieked. It clawed. It tore apart my husband’s frame as if it remembered.

“Right, right,” he mumbled, drifting. “So what? Gone. With tears.”

“He is here,” he said suddenly, pressing a hand to his chest.

“Bastard,” I muttered.

“The city?”

“No,” he whispered. “Him.”

Then he spoke again, voice low and reverent, as if reciting a prayer passed down in blood.

“He was the home of a thousand virtues, allegories, poems, and epics—flowers of mountains, songs of mountains, our fragrant bower... yours, and mine, and my own sibling.”

With bitter remembrance, I rose. A giant in grief.

The tempest had raged, had screamed, had swallowed us whole. Smoke billowed from the heart of the town. The streets we knew shrank into splinters and embers.

And then—without warning, without farewell—he was gone.

Vanished into the ether, as if he had never been.

Goddamn.

I stood there, barely breathing, murmuring the only words I had left:

How dare you?

A passerby startled me. His voice broke the silence, casual and cryptic.

“Are you waiting for the Happy Prince, Your Majesty?”

It sounded like a jest, but there was something in his eyes—something deeper. A flicker of ruin. Of knowing. A wayward soul.A wanderer, like me.I regarded his figure with a bitter gaze, tracing the outline of his shadow as if it might speak. There was something broken in the way he carried himself—something nearly as flawed as my own reflection.

.

****

The season of a quiet  toll

Years had to pass before the weight of them settled on my skin like silent dust—inescapable, unyielding. Time showed no mercy, bringing me back here, to this street, to this face I had tried so hard to forget. George Street stretched before me like my wound, raw and open, aching with memories I couldn’t close. And there he was—my husband’s friend—walking leisurely, as if the years had been gentle with him. His gaze met mine, lingering too long, a familiarity that pulled at some invisible thread neither of us could sever. “Mother sent me binoculars and a new radio when I was a little guerrilla,” he said softly, voice thick with nostalgia, lips barely moving.His watching wasn’t new. A chill ran down my spine as I muttered, “Bastard, you were supposed to be gone.”

But he didn’t flinch. His eyes searched mine, as if seeking proof I was still alive, some remnant of the woman he once knew. Tears, unexpected and out of place, welled in his eyes. I lifted a cynical hand—a faint, almost indifferent wave. Yet even after he disappeared, his presence clung to me like a shadow I couldn’t shake. “Have you ever had an objective plan in your life?” he’d once asked. “No,” I’d replied. “I haven’t. I’ve never had one.” That was the truth. It was the hardest time for both of us—a period of restless immaturity where we hovered between knowing and not knowing, wanting and fearing. He lacked the courage to face me, and I, wild and merciless, was too much for him.

The moment he glimpsed my seriousness, he recoiled, shielding his face and fleeing through the crowd—a wounded ghost trying to escape the world of the living. I wanted to call his name, to hold on, but before I could speak, he was gone.Still, he never let me break him completely.He found refuge in forgotten streets and silent corners where poets go to die. His craft became his shield, his words the last barrier against a world that had stripped him bare. He had known prisons and battlefields alike and wore suffering like a second skin, his wounds medals he bore with quiet pride.And I, cruel and reckless, tried to tear him down with my words. Every savage insult, every venomous syllable aimed to hollow him out, reduce him to dust, make him weightless in my hands. But he remained—unyielding. Through it all, he saw me still, something pure and perfect in spite of myself. And that was the cruelest cruelty of all.

“I am a bitch,” I confessed to no one, the words heavy on my tongue, soaked in self-loathing. “A terrible woman. Mean and cruel.” I whispered it again, letting it sink in, letting it cut deep.The northern bay stretched before me, restless beneath the night’s breath. Lights danced on the waves like shattered stars. I stood rooted, hollowed, waiting for a revelation that never came.In the hazy reflection of the water, I saw her—my former self—tall, resolute, a storm I had created. “I won’t ever be...” The vow was unfinished, a silent promise to rise—not necessarily to redemption, but at least to understanding. In solitude, I sought the queen beneath whose feet I found the only stillness I’d known in years. She did not answer, but she did not turn away. Her stone gaze was comfort and anchor.

And as I looked up at her cold, grey face, I thought of his poem—words he left behind, words that refused to fade. When I heard them again, they felt strange and intimate—like whispers of a truth I’d long buried.“When I stare unto thee, further up to thy grey face, akin to me...” The rest was lost, but I knew what followed: “My bleeding wounds may torment thy conscience.”His words seemed like my discreet consciousness—quiet, secret, and painfully true.

                                                                      ****

Threshold of Resonance (Exile Cut) George Street choked on its own disquiet, the city a feverish beast writhing beneath me, dreaming in the clatter of heat and the stench of diesel. Its every exhalation was thick with the broken glow of neon and the dust of universal forgetting. Rain-gored bars bled light into puddles like shattered prophecies. I moved through them—a ghost among the living, untouched, unwitnessed. The world had ceased to offer reflections. I simply was. I wandered without aim, each step an obeisance to something older than will. My body navigated the grimy avenues not as my own, but as living inheritance—a memory unowned, carried in the bone. Whether I turned left into the gaudy glare, forward into deepening dusk, or backward into the gaping maw of ruin, it ceased to matter. My path was not chosen. It was inscribed beneath the blood, a silent scripture above speech. I was being summoned. My destination: St. Mary’s. The cathedral did not merely stand—it brooded. A monolithic verdict carved in stone, its gothic ribs torn open to a God long deafened by silence. Mist, thick and funereal, draped its spires like burial shrouds, obscuring the heavens it strained toward. The air, heavy and calcified, held the echoing thrum of prayers too ancient to be interpreted, too wounded to be heard. No absolution resided here. Only resonance—fossilized in every grain of mortar, glorified in the shattering silence that permeated its hollow chambers. Victoria awaited again—fixed, imperial, and terrifyingly blind. The bronze queen, sentinel of forgotten ages, presided over an expanse of palpable absence. Her crown was a cold mockery, forged from the ashes of vanished empires; her face, a mask etched with the sorrow of regret and the bitter triumph of conquest. I did not look at her. I looked through her, into the void where her spirit once was. And something deep within me—a phantom nerve—trembled, as if memory itself had flinched from an unutterable truth. She was not the statue. I was. The poem pulsed in my hand, a relic still warm from the crucible of grief. His last words—not ink, but scripture encrypted in ache. Each line a throb, like bone remembering its fracture, a nerve reliving its severing. And so, from somewhere deeper than lips, from the marrow of my being, I exhaled the question: “Who walks beside me?” Time buckled. The air folded inward, soaked in unspeakable meaning, becoming a medium of revelation. The voice that answered was not mine. Was not hers. It was not singular at all, but a chorus—a convergence of whispers and roars, ancient and immediate: “You do. We do. We are the answer unfolding.” We paused—not as thought, but as recursion. Echoes contemplating themselves. The universe, mirrored in a drop of dew. “Perhaps someday.” It was no longer a statement. It was a dimension, a place one could step into. A future forged from the ache of now. I envisioned confronting Mao then—the spectral archivist, the curator of human suffering, who catalogued trauma like fireproofed relics. “Fuck you, Mao,” I whispered, but the profanity felt hollow—a performance without heat, lacking the raw power of hatred. So I didn’t curse him. I deleted him. Not with fire, but with the obliterating indifference of irrelevance. He became static, a flicker of forgotten noise. A watermark on history’s failed draft. My existence no longer fit within his ledger; I no longer belonged to the biology he documented, nor to the suffering he codified. Time was no longer a thread. It was an ember, a loop of fire, consuming and renewing. And I—the match, the ash, the breath that stirred the flame. The poem inside me began to move, not across the page, but beneath the skin. A living force. No longer language. Mutation. There were no more sentences. Only wounds shaped like truths. I felt them ignite—not burn, but illuminate, forming an internal constellation. Coordinates written in scar tissue, legible only to grief, decipherable only in the language of irreversible loss. The wind read me. The city read me. And the stars, ancient and silent, read me in a tongue that predates light itself. I stood, spine humming like a taut wire, my mouth salted with the taste of centuries. And then I heard him—my husband, gone beyond time, beyond reach. His voice settled on the skin of the world like fog, soft and everywhere, whispering Dante: “To behold the other pole, and saw four stars Ne’er seen before save by the primal people.” I inhaled. The vastness of the moment filled my lungs. “But I can see them,” I said. Because I am one of them—the ones who left. The ones who crossed oceans not of water, but of silence. Emigrants of history. Refugees of meaning. I see the four stars not because I am holy—not because I am chosen—but because I am elsewhere. Because exile, with its brutal clarity, honed my vision. Because loss, relentless and merciless, polished my perception to a blade. The stars—fierce, untamed, primal—hung not as guides, but as witnesses. Neither kind nor cruel. Just there. Like truth. Like gravity. Like the inevitable conclusion of all things. And beneath their ancient, unwavering gaze, I understood. There is no redemption. There is no forgiveness. There is only resonance—the sacred, terrifying violence between what was and what will never, can never, be again. I was no longer seeking. I was no longer mourning. I was finally in tune. So I stepped forward—not to be remembered, not to be absolved. But to rupture. To... [Words are Missing ].

The End
  Autumn 2004

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