Frank Georgalis – Writer

Tales of the Unexpected: Part I

TSIKA and I

By:

Frank Elias Georgalis

I have been told, I was born some years before WWII. It is a historical fact that a little more than two years after my arrival in this world, and in the month of October and in the year 1936, Hitler and Mussolini signed an agreement which was a detailed plan to conquer European countries and add them to Germany and Italy. It’s doubtful that Hitler and Mussolini had become aware of my arrival in this world, but it’s a known fact that a few days after I showed my face in town to start school, Hitler negotiated with Mussolini to invade Greece. They both were familiar with the Alexander the Great saga, who with his father Phillip, conquered the rest of Greece when he was only sixteen. I don’t know if any of my family ties are going back to Alexander the Great line, but if any of those two world giants had heard that I, at the age of four had learned the Greek alphabet and at the age of five I had learned the multiplication table at its entirety, they could have thought that had something to worry about. It is also true that I resembled Alexander the Great in more ways than one. I had curly hair, I was rather feisty and restless and I had a donkey, whom I had named Xerocefallos which means ‘wooden head’ and my father, like Alexander’s father, Phillip, had a strong military background and the illusion of conquering parts of Albania and Bulgaria and had almost started a mini revolution in the city of Preveza in 1922. If all those privileged circumstances about me had been brought to the attention of those two mental giants, Hitler and Mussolini, who were probably aware of the old proverb, ‘nip it in the bud’, and thinking of me as the ‘bud’, then the attack on Greece was on my account; otherwise it had to be a mere coincidental with my birth.
However, their one true motive was obvious; only to conquer more space, but anything else hidden behind it, will not be told in this story, because this story only covers my life up till the time that I was twelve. You, the reader, will be able to judge from reading this, whether Hitler and Mussolini acted in haste of invading Greece on my account or it was a mere chronological coincidence.
According to the midwife and about six or seven older black dressed neighborhood women, who were lingering around my house, waiting to see my entering this world and who were good suppliers of information about the town and with whom I had the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted later in life, when I arrived in this world, I first stretched, then after a few minutes of surveying my new environment, I began to cry. Whether I cried because I didn’t see a celebration for my arrival or I didn’t notice anybody enthused at the subject of my arrival, or I cried for not spotting a doctor around to receive me, or I cried for being taken away from the comfortable quarters that I had grown accustomed to for the past nine months, it is unknown; it is certain that I cried but “why” I cried? Even though I was there in body and in soul, I cannot recollect the reason that I cried; therefore it will remain a mystery for now.
Many things I don’t believe about my birth and a lot of things I do believe. I believe that I was born at five o’clock in the morning of April the 18th, which event makes me an Aries child, and according to the astrology the Aries children’s character description fits me perfectly, as you will see in the following pages of my story.
Another thing that I am certain of is that my grandmother, my father’s mother, closed her eyes upon the light of this world six months after I opened mine upon it. While she was taking me to church, she suffered a stroke and fell on the marble steps, in front of the church. As she fell, she tossed me out of her embrace so that she wouldn’t fall on me and squash my life out. As she pushed me, I was told, I landed in the crowded church of Saint Nicholas, looking up and seeing all the strange faces directed down at me and a million hands stretched out to get me, with their eyes nailed at me, I screamed. I didn’t scream for coming face to face with death for the first time in my life, for death was not known to me, but I now know I screamed seeing the world more frightening and more strange and bigger than the one I had seen at my arrival on this earth.
The other thing I am certain of is that my sister followed my birth two years later, receiving the same insignificant reception as I did, but that occurrence evidently had a smaller affect on her than in me, even though she was scorned by my aunt for being born a girl, instead of a boy that everybody had hoped for, in man’s domineering world. In spite of all that, she grew up with a philosophy of her own, accepting and adapting her own wisdom, and hadn’t followed my footsteps. I don’t mean to say that I have grown up being a spiteful man or malicious man, merciful, or a coward or a hero or respectful or respectable, because I really don’t know the true meaning of any of the titles with which people could have labeled me and some did. But I will, for the rest of my life, resent the fact that not even one doctor, of all the three doctors from town, felt obligated to stand there at the time of my birth, not to welcome me, which would had been too much to hope for, but just to pop me on the ass in order for me to cry– the first cry being the boost on life– instead of me having had to create my own method and reason for crying; then I would know as to why I cried, as most infants do when they first arrive and are received by a doctor who attended a university. What ever I have become, whatever station in life I have reached, I have done it by creating my own reason and method, as I’ve done with my first cry. If I am not perfect, that may be for not allowing anyone to show me how and what path in life to take and follow, because I always remembered my insignificant reception for there was nobody enthused at the subject of my arrival; I, therefore I have never acquired confidence in people, thus I have made some errors in the process of living. I don’t wish to reveal my errors at this point, but then again there are too few to mention.
But if you will insist of knowing, the answer is simple; if you, dear reader, are a fair-minded person, you will keep on reading a few more lines to find out why, on the other hand if you’re not fair-minded like most people, who don’t believe that behind every sin committed is a virtue that follows, then you can turn the page and read something that you can relate to, about a normal person, for instance, with a spouse, children, a house, a mortgage, a car in the drive way and one in the garage, the whole catastrophe of someone who is a normal person can relate to. I said normal just to fill the space, because I don’t know what a normal person is; I am closer to being abnormal than normal, because I am not in possession of any of the above, even though I had the talent to acquire such possesesions. If you really believe it is normal and good thinking to be in possession of all the above, then I come to believe that you are not thinking normally according to my thinking. If I should give you a reason for not being in possession of any of the above, and is satisfactory, then I would be called normal. Being married to the same woman for a long time and being wealthy beyond your ability in spending, are parallel with one another, because they are both Dead End streets. Any normal man or a woman blessed with good fate and tender heart falls in love. However, the way the people fall in love is that there are only two ways out of love: marriage or suicide. Not being in love with the idea of dying, they get married to the one they have fallen in love with. Both of the above acts are performed by any normal person, therefore I was once or twice normal. You have heard and you may believe that the road to getting rich is more fun and more exciting than just being rich. Being married is like being rich. Where are you going from there? I personally miss the road to getting there. I miss all the trials and tribulations, the challenges, the feeling of uncertainties, the self imposed punishment the struggles of trying to be better and not just being good, the feeling of being homeless and looking for a home, then the regrets- but wouldn’t it be better- wouldn’t it be a hundred times better- not to have left home- to go straight home? It is understood and not forgiven by many that my leaving the home of marriage was after the dishonoring of someone. Oh dear God, why God? Why did I dishonor others and I am looking for honor for myself? The dishonoring started out like a small time thief; then it progressed to big time stealing and deceiving. Finally after my dishonoring, stealing and deceiving, I was punished and left all-alone. At first it was a pleasing punishment to be all-alone, but I suddenly found myself enclosed within four walls without any opening that made me feel lonely, which was not pleasing anymore. Those were the feelings that follow me being lonely. These were feelings of guilt with regrets; not because I left something comfortable, but because I left some one uncomfortable. Being an Aries child, I shall continue my search for some happiness, in rags, in hunger, a beggar, and at last I shall find it. I will be married and happy again. I know one thing that the luster in searching never wears out. Thus I look back and I start again from the beginning. Am I normal or abnormal?

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR PART 2