Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informative reading.

You read many accusations against me in the article “VESTMENTS FOR EVERYONE” (Nomika Epilekta: Vestments for Everyone): that I bray outside the church while Papagiorgos is serving, that I am stupid and wicked, and lately even that I threw Papagiorgos into a ditch and sent him to hospital. But “judge no one before you have heard both sides,” so I thought I would present things from my own point of view, and whoever wishes may understand.

Just as all domestic animals have certain people to serve them, so Papagiorgos and his wife, Mavreta, fell to me. Both go around wrapped in black: Papagiorgos in a black sheet he calls a “cassock,” and Mavreta in pitch-black bloomers size XXL, since she weighs eight hundred okas.

Once she tried to climb onto my back, but I made a few sudden stumbles, supposedly out of madness, and she went sprawling. It took five strong men to lift her, and since then she has never tried to ride me again. As if I would let her break my back.

I have not understood exactly what Papagiorgos does in his free time, that is, when he is not feeding and watering me. Every so often he goes to church, puts on strange clothes full of bright colours, and I hear him chanting in a nasal, off-key way; yet a lot of people gather to see the spectacle. I wait, of course, until he is finished; I have no problem. But if some female donkey happens to pass nearby, I start braying. That is when the old women in church think I am chanting too, and for that reason they named me Papagaidaros.

My real name is Brgrmbchtskrpst, but people find it hard to pronounce. Lately the bishop named me Tsipras, because, he says, I keep going along the left side of the road, as if it makes any difference whether one goes left or right. There is grazing here and grazing there.

In the end, those who go around dressed in black sheets open up and speak freely only among themselves, or at least with their wives. With everyone else they put on a performance, as I have understood. So one day I heard Papagiorgos talking to a young priest who also came here to Fterno, named Papavangelis, and he was telling him:

  • Well then, my Papavango, now that you are young you too must learn how to sell plots in paradise.
  • Of course, Barbagiorgos; that is why I have you here, to train me.
  • Lesson one: pretend to be very strict with the congregation. At home you may eat even steaks on Good Friday if you want, but if someone confesses to you that he did such a thing, you must act shocked, forbid him to receive communion, and impose penances on him.
  • That is easy.
  • If someone realizes that you never fast, then say, “what comes out harms, not what goes in.”

Of course I do not know exactly what he means by “what comes out,” but if he means excrement, then he is wrong, since manure is extremely useful for vegetables and, these days, hard to find.

The black-sheeted ones make such disclosures with their wives as well. One day I was grazing behind their bedroom, and Papagiorgos was inside with Mavreta. I heard the following conversation:

  • Shall we recite poems, Mavreta?
  • Thy will be done.
  • If only I were a May donkey, an August ram, a rooster all year long and a tomcat in January. Let him who understands understand, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
  • I understood, I understood, my Barbagiorgos! Very instructive; we did not learn such things even in zoology.

I understood too, and I have large ears for hearing. When this happened it was the month of May, the month of donkeys, as the poet says. The month when hormones drive me mad and I do not know what I am doing. And as people have arranged things, our species is close to disappearing from Elladistan, ever since we were replaced by the two-legged donkeys that have filled the place. Now, however, you look for a female donkey in May, when you need one, and you cannot find even a sample...

And behold, the day after Papagiorgos’s poetic recitation, while I was carrying him to his field, intoxicating aromas of donkey estrogen mixed with the scent of thistle came to me, as if I had drunk three bottles of whisky at once. I looked farther on, and what should I see: a female donkey, obviously newly brought to our village, thanks be to the Gypsies who keep making sure we do not vanish completely from the map. She walked swaying and bending, her ears gathered and turned back, her head high and her mouth open, in a posture ready to receive the bridegroom. And the bridegroom was yours truly.

The trouble was that Papagiorgos was on my back. I tried to make him understand that he now had to get down and let me perform my God-pleasing work, but no. The closer I came to the female donkey, the more he shouted and pulled the ropes in the opposite direction to brake me, plainly afraid that I might sin and set a bad example. But when we animals are seized by instinct, nothing restrains us. We do not have the ability to perform like people, that is, to want something while pretending we do not; besides, there is no reason for such a thing. So, since there was no other solution, I made a few leaps to catch the female donkey, and the poor priest ended up on his back in the ditch, the priest in one place and his cassock in another.

When everything was over, I waited for Papagiorgos to mount me again so that we could continue on our way, but he did not move. I waited a long time, but he did not stir. I began to worry. Finally I took the road home alone, where the priest’s wife was, and as soon as I saw her I began stumbling and grunting to make her understand that something had happened to the priest, since people do not understand our language, while we understand theirs.

Seeing my strange behaviour and noticing that the priest was missing, the priest’s wife quickly understood that something bad had happened. She started shouting, neighbours came, and eventually someone went by car and collected the priest, who ended up in hospital and took a month to recover. The source text then contains a corrupt stray archival fragment about my God-pleasing work, Lefkada, and Alpha Bank.

Since he came out of hospital, in any case, he seems worn down and has not dared to climb on my back again. The poor man does not understand that now May has passed there is no longer any danger, until the same season next year...

Meanwhile the poetic evenings continue. Now Mavreta recites the poems, and one of her favourites is the following:

One Sunday, very early in the morning

The priest’s wife was washing underwear

Ah, poor deserted underwear

Where are the two and the long one?

Gerasimos Fourlanos

www.fourlanos.com