CHAPTER 1:
TheFirstMeetingwiththeBlackDressedPriest
The wind keeps whistling through the tree leaves in an unusual, steady intensity; it neither strengthens nor weakens. The scenery remains unchanged.So familiar, yet so unworldly.
The Swamp.This scene of dark palms on white sand would better suit an exotic beach rather than this spooky landscape, where the darkness, the fog and moon penumbra compose the same old broody ambience. The man reluctantly crosses the unusually glistening stone path through The Swamp, always wearing the same dark cape and black hood, resembling a Catholic monk.
Suddenly, radio interference is heard everywhere in the loudest volume possible.
Nightmare!hethinks, waking and jumping out of bed to turn off the irritating radio alarm clock. The time is 06:30 and he has to swiftly get ready, before the memories of the nightmare he just saw fade, and the daily soul-slaying thoughts start to flood.
The man’s name is Telemachus Andronicus. Even if his name is an ancient, majestic Greek one, taken from the Homeric Epics, the man himself is not so majestic, since he is only an overweight, thirty-three-year-old, petty bourgeois working as a bank clerk. A job that he despises, that feels like an intestine-eating disease.
He never seemed to realise how time flew by. How could a youngster, with dreams and a passion for life, end up an isolated, grouchy, balding, almost middle-aged looking man who now weighs 133 kilos and looks in far worse shape than his own dad?
Now he is in the bathroom, needing to wake up, dousing his face with cold water. His image in the mirror feels like that of a stranger. It looks like someone who vaguely resembles him, only uglier. The sole detail he recognizes as his own is his black-eyed gaze. Although darker, as time goes by, it remains the same. It hides something deeper and undistinguished, but it is there.
He wearily heads to work. He almost unnoticeably finds himself seated behind the cashier’s desk, using the bill counter, with a queue lining up, while his mind is lost in thought. Like what would havehappened if he had made the right choices in the right moments. Suddenly, sharp pain strikes his head and chest. Everything fades out while he realises his body is falling, helpless, to the floor.
After confusing images of spikes, swords and deserts, the scene clears. The Swamp! The bushy, nightmarish ground, surrounded by moving fog, feels scary to him, yet fascinating too. The figure of some kind of dark monk, marching on the white path, can be seen this time in the distance.
“Mr. Andronicus, are you alright?”
Telemachus opens his eyes, brought back
