Nine short stories for romantics and wanderers with
an intermediate stop at the hidden life of things. Stories after the end of love; journeys without destination,
returns that remain suspended, bars like lighthouses at the edge of
the night. As memory and imagination merge, the heroes
try on a final act of apology. Stories for those
who have nowhere to stay or return to; people
who face their morality, their origin,
their class.
A narrator crosses a city in collapse and tries to piece together the fragments of the future with the certainty
that everything we knew from the lives of others was only the
square window of a cubic room.
Without the bars, confessions and prayers would remain
empty. Here the essays of tomorrow will be born, here the literature
of the century, here, from a tangle of words that will be forgotten as if
never spoken, indelible words will be engraved in memory,
the insignificant will challenge the significant, practical philosophy,
will be recited in public, ideological battles, which will remain
simple ideas, will unfold, the spirit may not quench its thirst but
will be nourished, words of love with the quality of the unprecedented and
the poverty of the oft-repeated will shine, but only one
will win, the opponent will be condemned to eternal oblivion,
and unambiguous words will be drowned to remain on top,
like diamond icebergs in the sea of night, words
that change the world with the slow lick, but relentless
persistence of the drop that carves the rock. Sparks of happiness,
the pools of misery, words never had the power
of the event, but they are the only way people have found
to touch through the skin, to unite where the body
will always be the limit.
Stefania Kerki was born in Athens. She studied Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Cultural
Management at Panteion University. She has collaborated with
cultural organizations for designing
programs and artistic productions. She was a member of the editorial team
of SKRA-punk, while her articles and literary
texts have been published in print and
electronic magazines. She works in the field
of audiovisual production and continues
her studies in Art History. The short story collection Sator is her first
book.
Cover:
Detail from the work "I AM-AIM"
(woodcut on vertical wood, 2022) by
Evripidis Papadopetrakis.
