Akrithakis suitcase
"In the beginning was the "tsiki-tsiki". A child very seriously smudging papers. He is painting toys: an airplane, a boat, the giant wheel of a luna-park. Lights flashing. The wooden horse neighs. The clicking of a ratchet sounds - and everything explodes in the air. Then Alexis takes a suitcase and wonders around the four points of the horizon to find the remains.
And his persistence is such that he gets to find some pieces: the washed out wood of a boat, a dolls arm, half an airplane wing. He collects them and puts them in the suitcase. He is trying to reassemble the childhood dream. The sea-wood is a boat, the airplane wing a mast, the dolls arm steering gear. On a paper sea he is drawing arrows so that this toy won't lose its course and sink. He puts it again in his suitcase and begins to travel around the world. He is looking for adults who are themselves children and then he opens the suitcase and shows them the strange toy. For everyone else the suitcase remains closed. But it travels. Suitcases are made for traveling. And what matters is the journey - don't you think?"
Published in literary magazine "λέξη", Athens, 1982
