The prostitute lifted her skirt,
and with her finger pointed between her legs.
-"You know what that is?" she asked me
-"This is life" she responded...
- "It makes life, it gives life, it takes life, and it kills life.
This is my life, everything that I have ever experienced
is through there"...
I slowly rolled cigarette and lit it.
I thought what does a prostitute know about life.
-"I have loved many men", she continued
-"and they loved me too, but love is of the flesh
and the flesh will eventually rot. This love though,
this love keeps me young but I am not young anymore."
Her hands were beautiful once. Her mascara was overdone. I lowered my head.
- "I loved you tonight".. she wispered.
- "I loved you too".. I replied.
- "Customers are scarce you know", she mutured...
- "I have to go Elenitsa"...I responded
- "With my blessings"..
I looked at her and I saw the loneliness and the despair. Elenitsa had always been alone,
alone with life, watching life pass. Occasionally life would send her a visitor. Elenitsa though was still alone. Life had overwhelmed her. Her spirit though was pure.
-You are coming back?
- Of course beautiful Elenitsa.
She smiled.
-My blessings..
I am older now and Elenitsa has since passed on. They found her dead in her little shack all alone, forgotten by man but not God, lying on her bed holding on to an old icon of St. Constantine.
Now I realize how wrong I had been. Elenitsa had known what life is. Life is human and life is merciless. Life is suffering, life is loneliness, and life is death. An endless requiem interrupted by love.
Fivos R Drymiotis 7/13/2005