An Interlude of Shock

So, for the last few days I have been unable to devote myself to my literary translations; early evening starts at work and late night finishes with lazy mornings do not quite help. I have actually two literary translations that I have left unfinished; one from German to English and another from Greek to English.
Apart from unhelpful work schedules I have also been distracted by everything that goes on these last few days in the UK. Well, I am so unbelievably angry, sad, depressed, maybe a little scared for the future, yes, and also a bit resigned.I am incredibly angry at the British people for having voted to take the UK out of the EU. Angry because I think they voted against the EU by not even knowing what the EU means or what it stands for. I am angry because they cast a vote of blind anger, frustration and ignorance instead of a vote based on balanced positive and negative information and facts. But here is the issue. I think the British people have every right under the sun to be angry and frustrated because during the last 5 years of a coalition between the Conservatives as a dominant party and the Liberal Democrats as a minor party, the living standards of the British people have been steadily reduced.

Ok, sure the Liberal Democrats agreed to raise the University tuition fees, which they shouldn't have done, but the Conservatives have caused considerable damage. Now that we are at the mercy of the Conservatives on their own, local councils are having to cut down on even more expenditure for infrastructure and the people. Public Libraries like the one we used to have in our suburb have closed. Local community centres have closed. You walk around the local council markets and there are so many stalls empty because their owners can no longer afford to pay the rent. People who NEED social benefits because of physical illness or because they provide care to a loved one have seen their situation becoming a lot worse. Not to mention all those billions of pounds that have been robbed out of the coffers of the UK because of the beautiful tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Also I am so incredibly angry at the British people but also sad for their inexplicable hatred of all of us foreigners who apparently have become "too many". I came to this country as a student to do my Master's Degree and then ever since I have been in employment. At the place where I work, there are also other immigrants from Easter Europe, all of them in employment, speaking near-perfect English and not abusing any benefits. I do not have the vested interest of an immigrant who leeches on social benefits at the expense of the British taxpayer. I do however have the vested interest of an immigrant who has been happily partnered to a British citizen for quite a few years. As far as I am concerned, MY PARTNER who has been--and will always be--the best thing in my life, is MY HOME. And in a way through him, Britain has also become my home. So, I DO have a vested interest in the UK remaining in the EU, because any negative consequences will affect both my partner and me.

 But, for some reason the British people who voted BREXIT did not seem to understand or maybe they didn't want to believe that all this methodical destruction of our standards of living has come from British politicians and  NOT from Brussels of from the EU parliament. They have also been unable or unwilling to understand that the EU has never dictated that hundreds of thousands of immigrants should come to the UK and get benefits, social housing and health-care without contributing anything to the system. The system had already been abjectly damaged with lazy British citizens who are perfectly physically capable of work but are content not to, at the expense of hard-working British citizens who work full time or are in menial employment. But for some inexplicable reason in the mindset of the average under-educated or uneducated British person, the EU must have been one and the same thing as Westminster and the British House of Commons.

Who knows? Maybe by some miracle--hoping against hope--the UK will never leave the European Union. Maybe there will be a second referendum or maybe the disgraceful lies of the (mainly Conservative) Brexit campaigners will be brought under such light that there will be some sort of an official decision in the House of Commons to scrap the whole farcical referendum.

And here is an excerpt of the first short story I published.

The Price

Of Glory

Laid down, in front of the holy picture of the Virgin Mary, she was praying and pleading. Far, over in the mountains, the cannon shots and rifle shots were relentless and her brother had left dressed in khaki with his rifle on the shoulder, to wash away the shame of the last war…

“Holy Mary, have mercy…Don’t let my brother come to any harm! He’s so handsome…and so brave…”

He was among the first to go, before he had even been officially summoned and now she knew he was up there in the mountains, where the cannons and the rifles were relentless…

And the Grim Reaper came in front of her, dressed in black, on his black horse and his black bow and arrows.

“I felt sorry for your tears” he said to her “and came to ask you to choose whom you want me to take with my arrow instead of your brother”.

“Whom?” she asked not being able to believe in her ears; “my dear Reaper, take whomever you want but have mercy on my brother!”

“There is no whomever you want. Tell me whom you want me to take with my arrow”.

The maid was trembling.

“But…is it necessary to take somebody with you?”

“Of course! There is no other way…”

“Then…take whomever you want! Don’t ask me!”

“If I take whomever I want, I will take your brother because it’s his turn to fall from the bullet. But you have shed so many tears and pleaded so much that I felt sorry for you and I came here to tell you…So say now. Whom do you want me to take with my arrow instead of your brother?”

“Take…take…” whispered the maid and her lips were shaking, “take a Turk”.

The Grim Reaper laughed and the entire church shook from his thunderous horrible laughter. The maid felt shivers down her spine and covered her face.

“Wasn’t it glory that your brother wanted? Glory is rewarded with blood.”

“Take as much Turkish blood as you want…”

“It isn’t rewarded with the blood of the enemy”.

“Oh, dear God!” wailed the maid “you choose then!”

“Fine!” said the Reaper, “Look here”.

He placed in front her a mirror and the maid saw inside the mirror a battle, thousands of fiery rifles shooting, swords that gleamed, horses foaming at the mouth, pulling the black cannons and to the right hundreds of men dressed in khaki, the sign of the crown on their caps and the rifles on their shoulders. Among them she recognised her brother. She let out a scream of pain and covered her face again but the Grim Reaper insisted…

So, the first story I decided to publish after having translated it from Greek to English, is a short story called "The Price of Glory" by the long-deceased Greek author Penelope Delta.

As a short story, it is part of an anthology of six short stories, whose title is "Fairy-tales and Other Stories". It was written in the 1910s, which was a period in which a lot of things had happened on an international level. Penelope Delta's fiction was addressed to children or grown adolescents who can be receptive to a mixture of entertaining and didactic fiction.

So, there you go. I hope you like what you read!