Chryssa
Chryssa is in her thirties. She works as a nurse in a retirement home.
Lately, she has been listening to Alkinoos Ioannides and Dua Lipa. She wonders if a bob haircut would suit her and every morning, she prepares a double espresso and takes it with her in a thermos. She lives with her dog and cannot decide if she wants to break up with Michalis or move in with him. In high school she wanted to be a veterinarian and she was a good student, but then again who knows what life holds for them?
It was mainly the chemistry professor’s fault. It might have been the fact that she often saw Chryssa in the school’s clandestine smoking room or, admittedly, the fact that after Christmas she started to slack off because she fell for Lefteris —who turned out to be a huge jerk. All in all, the obnoxious high-school chemist convinced her parents to move her to a vocational institute and without any thought they did so. Well, there, the only thing happening was fights and as she couldn’t see the point of it, she dropped out. She started working at a traditional donut store named after the owner, «Fróso», on Ipodromiou Str. She spent a year and a half there. It was the best of time! She could smoke her cigarette calmly during the break without anyone over her head. Everything changed with the appearance of the writer Elias Venezis in her life. He had once written something about a girl named Artemis. «You remind me of her» said one day Mr. Aggelos, the owner of an antiquities store across the street. «Here, take this book. A gift for you». The following ten days her break along with the cigarette were spent in the Land of Eolia. Afterwards, Mr. Aggelos provided her with more destinations.
And Fróso never said a word against it. Even when Chryssa started to lose track of time during the breaks, Fróso would glance at her from behind the frying pan and smile.
«What is going on Chryssa? Are you going to turn into an honours student all of a sudden?», Fróso told her one day. «With this amount of reading you would have graduated already. Do you know that over there, above the theatre at Ethnikis Aminis Street, there is an afternoon school for grown-ups? For the ones that never got the paper».
She went.
She would finish work, dust off the flour, change clothes and go to class.
And when she graduated and entered nursing school Fróso, all teared up, said «Now, that’s a different type of white uniform. You’ll keep healing people but in another way not only through their cravings». And gave her the bag. «From Mr. Aggelos and me. Something to remember us by».
She never forgot them. And today, ten years after the fact, she is drinking a consolation coffee across the street from the church at the funeral of a woman she barely knew. She hadn’t spent more than three weeks at the nursing home, Chryssa didn’t get to be acquainted with her. But a member of the staff had to accompany her until the funeral.
On her way back, she will pass by Fróso’s to talk with her over a coffee. She doesn’t fry anymore. Her feet hurt. But she helps her husband in the store, as much as she can.
Mr. Aggelos had parted three years before that, after a full life in time and destinations.
She must solve the issues with her insomnia. And with Michalis? What is she going to do? The fact that she always ends up with jerks has her very puzzled.
Giota Kouitzoglou
