Revenge of the Overcoat I came out of the shower, dried up my body, put on my cream, wore my perfume, opened the closet door and stood there for a while motionless wondering what dress to put on. Opened the drawer with my undergarments, my eyes went through it quickly and got fixated on the hanger with your over coat. Quick glance at the clock, I had to rush, had to be at the airport on time. His plane was on schedule. Stretched my arm touched the hanger with your over coat. I put it on, tightening the belt around my waist. Chose my six inch purple Jimmy Choo heels, purple bag, put on some lipstick, locked the house got into my car and drove out to the airport. This way I thought of taking revenge on you, my love. Wearing the over coat you bought for me, with no other garments under it and waiting for him to return from his trip and cuddle in my arms. But I didn’t count it right. Because at the end the over coat between him and I kept us apart.
Weary to the bone and anxious for the comfort of a soft bed, still she went to the dressing table and picked up her hairbrush. As always when she brushed her hair she missed the long blonde tresses that used to fall below her shoulders when released from the hairpins. During the war she had her hair bobbed in the fashion made popular by the women of the armed forces and, to her chagrin, the colour had darkened. “Mousy blonde,” Margaret had described it one day. Sarah had felt the urge to retort that mousy blonde was better than nondescript brown but she held her tongue. One never got in the last word with Margaret. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, laid the brush down and placed both hands flat on top of the dressing table. As she leaned forward it suddenly struck her that the face staring back at her might have been the face of a stranger. Who was that person whom she thought she knew so well? Sarah Roberts, twenty-nine years old, spinster. Sarah Roberts, graduate of Tillsonburg High, class of ’37. Sarah Roberts, schoolteacher, holder of a teaching certificate from Normal School in London, Ontario. Sarah Roberts, mail-order bride. In reality, only the latter Sarah Roberts was the stranger. What, she wondered now, had led the popular student, the successful and dedicated elementary schoolteacher to lower herself to this? Whatever madness had possessed her to respond to the advertisement in the personal column of the Winnipeg Free Press had stayed with her through months of a correspondence which led her to believe she was in love with someone she had never laid eyes on. And this is where her impetuousness had brought her – to this backwoods of the Saskatchewan prairie, to a man she had promised to marry as soon as she arrived. She would, of course, tell him tomorrow she was sorry but she had changed her mind. She would tell him – kindly – that she felt he had misrepresented himself, to say nothing of the deception he had perpetrated concerning this farm. She would ask him to drive her to Nimkus where she would catch the eastbound train and be home before anyone missed her…
FRONTIERSMEN Having no ears and no eyes oh you bony populace, close your praising mouths and stop jumping from joy. A wild drunkenness drags everything to theatres and taverns the palatial Polis and the King. And they mix with the reigns of the horse of the crowned charioteer, the precious and holy. The African men have arrived! The Turks destroyers of the world surround us the destroyers of nations the Asian conquerors. And we the frontiers men with our silver-made spears the golden saddled horses have been utterly discarded.
III Deep wounds inflicted by the ancient symbols on the soft petals of the crying rose the cross outlines a crucifixion the crescent embalms a beheading spring dresses in chiaroscuro. Deep wounds inflicted by greed and symbiotic animosity of two insignia spreading the monopolized sanctity over the eastern horizon and further. Bottomless wells blooming in blood passions crashing the toughest stone all dreams dip in sulfur colourful brilliance of the sky fading slowly behind black curtains. Undulating horrific shadows compliment the headmaster’s desire as blurred eyes can not see through a foggy conscience memory of short laughter and long peaceful nights vanish when the kissed lips of the virgin become a meaningful reason for the upcoming execution.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 