From the upcoming novel, Anthi & M Ensemble (2024)
Prologue
After Greece Is My Anthi, a novel about Anthi and M finally meeting and falling in love, and Goddess Athena and Patrick, as well as other savoury characters, it was time to continue their tale in a second novel, which follows their adventuresome love story from their one-year tree (not paper) wedding anniversary (September 5, 2022) until M’s programmed demise; I mean that of his body, of course; certainly not his soul, especially that Anthi is the one carrying it with so much love. By the way, I am M, and the programming may have changed.
I will start with five mantinades. A mantinada typically consists of a Cretan 15-syllable rhyming couplet (mantinades is the plural).
O Anthi, from here to eternity, and perhaps beyond!
I wonder if the Cosmos will but benignantly respond.
What did you ask of it, my M, though I may already know?
I will always be with you, as long as you want us to flow.
O my Anthi Kanéna1 of Athens in heartwarming Greece!
I wanted to know if souls need dark matter to live in peace.
O my dear M of Montreal and our Athena’s Athens!
Souls may also need dark energy for their leveled fashions.
O my dearest Anthi in the sky, my blue-and-white flowers!
I cannot foresee my life without you, let alone the hours.
I will continue with five sensual mantinades.
O Anthi, from your encouraging hair to your ten long toes!
I wonder if you can, from now on, avoid wearing most clothes.
What do you really mean, my M, although I can surely guess?
I will always keep my panties for you to bite and undress.
O Anthi Kanéna of my chest and heart in my mind’s Greece!
You can also keep your blue bra as a persistency piece.
O my dear M of my nous and always-loving Athena!
My soul lusts after yours and together they void kanéna.
O my dearest Anthi in all I am within and without!
There is still one cute picturesque pleasure you did not lay out.
1 Kanéna, chosen by Anthi Psomiadou, means “none” in Greek.
Part 1 – Over a Year of Bliss
To be or not to be
and (x – 2) (x + 2) = 12
appear like bizarre bedfellows
Indeed
But then
to live or to die
and x = 4 and -4
make more sense
What do I live fo(u)r
and what will I die fo(u)r
For yo(u)
my dear Anthi
Our two-month honeymoon in Portugal, Iceland, Tahiti (Pora Pora; there is no B in the Tahitian language), and Crete, two weeks each, continued in Athens to become over one year of bliss, and it is far from any finish line. Anthi agrees as far as I know.
“Come on, my M! You know beyond any doubt that I agree, my love.”
O my Anthi; I do know! But I did not want our love story to appear as perfect as it is. Our readers in the real world may take offense, being mostly used to tragedy befalling every love story. You are certainly not a Juliet and I am no Romeo.
“O my M; I have your soul and I will never let you go.”
Do you remember the pellucid water of Pora Pora, which permitted us to contemplate their plenitude and expose our immemorial unimportance? (I am not sure that Anthi meditated upon the latter, but yours truly was immersed in it like a ray.)
“I do, my M. How could I ever forget its abundance and the feeling, although exaggerated, of our humility in comparison?”
I stand corrected, dear reader. How could have I doubted her? She is perfect, at least in my eyes and those of all lifeforms who know her even just a little.
“She will forgive you, dear M,” our Goddess Athena told me in my mind.
I know, my Goddess, our Athena. Perfection will remain your domain, and thus Anthi must be singular in her perfection as a human.
“She may not have loved you if you did not at least approach it in her eyes, especially that she does not consider herself to be perfect, as you well know and have written about,” beautiful Athena replied.
I love you, Anthi, from every angle; at least those that I was able to trace and then contemplate.
“I saw it in your eyes and in the way that your fingers caressed my skin, even in the dark, even in our dreams, my M.”
We never dreamt about fire, except when we were close to the Sun. I want us to ride in a chariot, but instead of horses, I want the chariot to be carried away by flames. We could descend into the sea and come out wet, ascending back to the sky.
“A chariot of fire and I, siting against you, to feel even warmer. It would be another first. Our Goddess will surely make it happen, my M.”
“You will dream it tonight,” Athena whispered in our minds. I had a few tears for some reason. Perhaps wishing for Athena everywhere; a real Goddess. Anthi was also touched; even feeling it in my soul.
It was strange to hold the reins of five flames of fire within a blue-and-white chariot, which seemed to hug us with warmth and comfort. I offered Anthi the reins, finding myself behind her, trying to bury my head in her hair, more in love with her, if at all attainable, and happy to be alive.
At one point, we were slowly racing on the rings of Kronos1, Anthi screaming, Moses, towards each side, and I; I mean M, listening to the sound of her voice, praying that I will be always able to hear it.
I realised that I could pray to Athena. She would never ask for it, since she would never need it. But I seem to need it and want to pray to Her because I love Her; we all do. There may be a human need to adore someone or something. I adore, Anthi.
We rode in many shades of sky, from blue to space dark, in clouds and emptiness, led all along by fiery flames, feeling our chests but not our souls. They have been together for many years. Our souls feel each other. We do too through our minds and our senses, but our souls are external; some would even say, superior. Some scales cannot be compared. A good question to entertain is whether we would prefer to be humans or souls. Humans may need souls but souls may not need humans.
Can we fall asleep within a dream? It appears to be the case, since Anthi and M; I mean me, fell asleep in the chariot, as it was flying from the Moon to Earth, as far as we could remember. We awoke a few hours after dawn, both smiling with a plan in mind. We cannot travel in space while awake, but we can travel on Earth, and much more easily in Greece. We had mentioned before our wedding that we would visit every pillar and patch of Greece, and now, we could live up to it.
There are many more islands than those shown on the map below, but most of them are uninhabited. We had visited Crete more than once, so we decided to follow a clockwise ellipse, starting after Crete, the big island at the bottom of the map, and ending, one eventful evening, back in Crete, where our love for each other began to bloom.
Like a Rorschach inkblot, one could perceive something else looking at this blue map of Greece. O Greece! You were much larger before the ways of the world carved pieces out of you, as they did from your monuments. While your sculptures will be returned to you one day, your lost territories will probably not, unless Zeus also returns, with the other Gods and Goddesses, and demands their return. Goddess Athena lives with the times and her wisdom would never allow her, as far as we know, to even entertain such a thought.
Thus starts our new adventure from a chariot of fire to a car of flowers, with a boat of sea from time to time, a plane of sky occasionally, and always a dream of remaining ensemble (together) no matter the current ways of the world.
1 Kronos is the original Greek name of Saturn.
Vangelis – Chariots of Fire
The novel, Anthi & M Ensemble, has a total of 80 parts, beside the Prologue and Epilogue.