"FATHER ANASTASIOS"
by Antonios Maltezos

It made no difference to me how old he had become. Even in the dark, I could see his cancer. It showed through his skin like a ready moth all black and moist in its cocoon. And he could see mine, spreading, trying desperately to stay alive.

Father Anastasios.

There wasn’t a man that could keep up with him when he wanted to get to the other side of the island. Not even his mule. To his face, everyone was polite. Reputation will do that, you see. They would ask him how he was doing, mostly in passing, just as a passing thought, but what they really wanted to know was had he indeed collaborated with the enemy during the war?

You could have been like a father to me, I told him with my eyes, resting my heavy hand on his shoulder. But he moved away, pulling his robes with him.

You were like my father, I told him and my eyes welled up with tears because I felt his pain.

He looked towards the sound of the wind riding up the mountainside then, his arms holding his legs close to his body. He was like a big black rock, as if he had always been a part of that mountain. I could hear the wind as well, and it angered me because it was incessant, like a gossip whispering in my ear.

Father Anastasios.

In the end, he slid down the mountain like a hundred kilo bag of cement.

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Antonios Maltezos has recently been published in Pindeldyboz, Musings: An Anthology of Greek Canadian Literature, The Carriage House Review, Slingshot, and The Pedestal. He also has work forthcoming in NFG and Night Train.

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