Priest Ioan Istrati
Warm night in Perdika, in the island of Saint Nektarios. The waves caress very subtly the round pebbles from the shore as a stolen kiss. Far away an old man is heard playing the violin at an old tavern. In the sky there is a huge moon shadowed by a circle of mystery, like a golden shroud. I am talking with my good friend about life. He tells me: this mad life, this rush after matter, this swarm of people, this anthill of worries. What kind of world will it be for the future? Why would I give birth to children I would condemn to suffering and rush?
I keep silence. I leave the sea to whisper something more about longing. Then I say:
`What terrible world was it for our parents when they made us?`
`Yes. Indeed, he said, my mother worked in a meat factory. She used to get up at 4 o clock in the morning. She groped through darkness an hour till the shriveled, awful bus where a hundred souls crowded sighing from this budern.
`You see ? They have never wondered for a moment what an ugly and bad world they would leave for their children. They made their duty of good conceivers, they gritted their teeth and put a loaf of bread for you on the table and left you in the care of God.
All your life and the life of your brothers, all your university years, your youth, your children, all the beauty of the world, this night itself would have passed into non existence if your mother had decided it was to difficult to give birth to you. Out of a gesture thousands of people, thousands of beautiful faces, billions of dreams and thoughts would have been wiped away for ever from the book of life.
I keep silence. The huge moon is strangely mirrored in the eyes of my friend. He cries.
