by Julian Gallo
‘Pappou, how do you know where the fish are?’
Stavros looks out towards the horizon. Thanos gazes at the boy, all knees and elbows, his curly hair, the color of ink, blowing in the breeze. He resembles a younger version of the boy’s father and perhaps even a younger version of himself. Stavros is wearing his father’s cap, the same cap which the old man had given his own son when he was the boy’s age. The same cap Thanos’s father had given him.
The sea is calm, like a sheet of glass. The boat gently sways in the water. Stavros leans on the railing, looking out.
‘You don’t,’ Thanos eventually answers. ‘You learn to guess, learn to listen. Instinct. You just know after a while.’
‘What are you listening for?’
‘The sea will speak to you if you’re willing to listen.’
‘The sea doesn’t talk.’
Thanos laughs. ‘It’s like an echo,’ he says. ‘It will say back to you what you say to it. Someone said that to me once. A very long time ago.’
Stavros gives him a questioning look. The boy doesn’t understand. Neither did Thanos’s own son. Neither did he when he was young.
The old man shifts on the wooden bench and allows the line to slip through his fingers. The boy leans forward, watching the water.
‘Is this how you caught so many fish when you were young?’
‘Something like that,’ Thanos says. ‘Mostly, we used nets.’ He points to the tangled net on the floor of the boat.
‘Did you always want to fish?’
‘It’s been a tradition in our family for generations,’ the old man says. ‘But mainly I just wanted to be loved.’ He eyes the boy and laughs when the boy makes a face.
Then the boy says, ‘Loved by who?’
Thanos looks out towards the horizon, the sunlight beginning to break through the clouds, scattering shimmering light across the water. He can see Athena’s face there, as he often did.
‘By a girl,’ Thanos says. ‘Long, long ago.’
‘Yiayia?’
‘No, someone else. Someone very different. I hadn’t known your grandmother yet.’
The boy goes quiet. He still doesn’t understand. The old man knows this but it doesn’t amuse him any less. Boys his age don’t want to hear about such things, much less talk about them, but he supposes he can teach his grandson something. Something he was never taught, but wished he was.
* * *
Athena came to the island when Thanos wasn’t much older than his grandson is now. Maybe fifteen, sixteen. Her father was from the mainland, there on business for some project or another. Thanos never knew what. Athena had long dark hair and piercing eyes which looked right through you. She would often come down to the docks and watch the fishermen mend their nets and tend to their boats. Thanos noticed her immediately, as did all the young men, but it was he who she paid most attention to. She had a way of looking at him which made him uncomfortable, as if she was peering into his soul. At the same time he welcomed it, for she was a beautiful girl, and it wasn’t often any girls came down to the dock unless it was one of the older men’s wives or the younger men’s mothers bringing them something to eat. She came daily, often just sitting there watching him, and before long they began to talk to one another, much to the chagrin of the other young men who also had their eyes on her. He’d show off for her—diving into the water and staying under for a dangerously long time, then resurfacing with a prideful arrogance. He once tried to convince her that he could hear the voice of the sea while he sank closer to the seabed, and it even knew him by name. She would laugh and humor his macho antics, but she told him the sea never called anyone. It echoed. He had no idea what she meant by that, but he pretended that he did. Anything to get into her good graces. He did, and they would see a lot of one another. It was one of the happiest summers of his life.
* * *
‘Pappou, what’s it like down there?’
Thanos returns to the present and looks down at the boy, who is now shielding his eyes from the light of the late afternoon sun.
‘Down where?’
‘In the water.’
‘It’s quiet,’ Thanos says. ‘Kind of like being left alone after everyone had gone. You can hear your own heartbeat, sometimes. You can’t help but feel like someone is watching you, but you can’t see them.’
‘That sounds scary.’
‘It can be.’
Thanos reaches for the net coiled on the floor beside him, the same net he had used for decades, one he had mended numerous times. He begins to untangle the knot as the boy watches his chapped, stubby fingers do the work.
‘Did you ever go too deep?’
‘Of course,’ the old man says, his fingers still working the knot. ‘Maybe more than once.’
Stavros waits for him to continue. He doesn’t.
A light breeze ripples across the water. Stavros tugs on the fishing line. ‘I don’t think there’s any fish today,’ he says.
‘There are always fish,’ says the old man. ‘Just not always where we look for them.’
Thanos looks out towards the horizon again. The sun has disappeared behind the clouds.
‘Tell me about the girl,’ the boy says. ‘The one you knew before Yiayia.’
Thanos goes silent for a long moment, as he listens to the creak of the boat, the slap of the waves against its side.
‘She was…different,’ he says. ‘Much different from Yiayia. She was interested in a lot of different things, wanted to talk more about things other than fish, or about the weather, or about money. And she listened, too. She never made you feel dumb for asking questions or if you didn’t know something. It was a kind of love that… Anyway, I ruined it.’
‘How did you ruin it?’
Thanos looks at the boy but doesn’t answer him, continues working the knot in the net.
* * *
The afternoon was clear and breezy and the air was alive with the sound of cicadas in the olive trees. Athena had asked him to take her out on his boat. The problem was it wasn’t his boat, but his father’s. However, he thought his father would understand.
Thanos was a proud young man—proud of ‘his’ boat, his youthful strength, and his nautical skills. Athena sat at the bow, her summer dress fluttering in the wind as the boat cut through the water, further out to sea. He’d tell her stories about the ancient island legends, age-old gossip about the islanders, and exploits of his own which were often highly exaggerated if not entirely untrue. She knew it, too, but she humored him. He told her a story, a local legend about how the sea gods would punish the arrogant and reward the humble, to which she replied, ‘Which are you, then?’ He laughed it off but the remark stung. He told her, rather angrily, that one day men would point to the sea and praise his maritime and fishing skills, that he would himself become a legend, one which the gods of the sea would reward. It took a lot for her not to laugh at him. She was quite fond of this simple island fisherman. He kept on about himself, about his fisherman’s prowess, how even the older, more seasoned men were jealous of him, and how all the island girls desired him. Shirtless, now, he navigated the boat further and further out to sea, far enough so that the shoreline had vanished from view. One day, he told her, all if it would belong to him, to which she replied, after looking at him for a long moment, ‘You talk like you’re the only one here.’ He didn’t answer her. That stung as well. He glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at him, her body now turned away. In the long silence that followed, he felt her withdraw. He couldn’t fully understand then, but he felt it, and it was uncomfortable. Without another word, he turned the boat around and started back towards the shore.
* * *
Stavros yawns and leans on the railing of the boat, tugging on his line. ‘I don’t think I could ever be a fisherman,’ he says.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’m not catching anything.’
‘You have to be patient.’
Thanos drops the net and walks over to the boy, peers over the side of the boat. ‘You don’t want to follow your father’s footsteps? What would you like to be?’
‘I don’t know,’ the boy says. ‘Maybe a football player.’
Thanos laughs. ‘Do you play with your friends?’
‘Sometimes. I’m not very good, though.’
‘Everything takes practice and patience. Even fishing. Do you know what my father told me? He told me the sea takes as much as it gives, that sometimes it’s better to find something that doesn’t pull you under. If you love the sea, it will love you back, but she’ll never love you more than you love yourself. I told this to your father when he was your age.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He didn’t say anything. I don’t think he understood me.’
‘He became a fisherman.’
‘Yes, that he did.’
Thanos returns to the net, continues trying to untangle the knot.
* * *
Athena had stopped coming to the dock. Her father had finished his work and had taken her back to the mainland. He had written many letters, regaling her with his exploits, bragging about how much fish he caught, and how his father told him that one day he was going to give him his boat. She didn’t answer all of his letters, but she did answer some of them, with promises to one day return to the island. Then the letters stopped coming. He tried to convince himself that she’d been busy with school, or that she lost his address, or that one day she would simply turn up, perhaps some time in the summer. When she didn’t, he grew bitter and angry. He kept thinking about the last evening they spent together, trying to make sense of her sudden silence. They had gone to the cliff above the cove where she liked to sit. She told him that she was leaving the following morning but had promised to keep in touch. ‘I’ll come back,’ she told him. He didn’t know what to say to her. ‘You’ll miss me,’ was all he could think of. It wasn’t a question. He remembered the look she gave him, one of disappointment and pity. The wind rose and down below the waves crashed against the rocks. They just sat there, not saying anything to one another. He wanted to cry but he didn’t dare.
* * *
Stavros’s voice breaks the silence again. ‘Were you mean to her, Pappou?’
The old man hesitates. ‘Well, I wasn’t exactly kind.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I wanted her to love me for who I thought I was, not for who I was. There’s a difference.’
‘How did you know there was a difference?’
‘I didn’t know it, at least at the time.’ The old man looks down at his dark, chapped hands. ‘I realized it too late. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’
‘I think so,’ Stavros says.
‘You’re about that age now, aren’t you? Your father was around your age when he first started becoming interested in girls.’
‘I have no girlfriend,’ Stavros says.
‘You will. Eventually.’
But he knows the boy isn’t really thinking about it just yet. Maybe in a few months, or perhaps a year. Kids are different now. At his age, he was already working with his father, out on the boat at sunrise, spending all day hauling fish and coming home smelling of them. He wasn’t even in school anymore. Stavros seems much younger to him than he actually is.
Stavros pulls the line into the boat. No fish.
‘That’s okay,’ the old man says. ‘Help me with this net and we’ll take a break for lunch.’
* * *
That was it. He never heard from her again. He tried to get on with his life. He’d always thought of Athena, especially when he was alone. He thought much of her, and how things could have been different, how he could have behaved less like a buffoon and more like a man. A real man. Like his father. He was too young. He didn’t know any better. How different would his life have been had he married Athena, he often wondered? He’d think about this when out at sea on the boat, which was now his, but the sea itself still wasn’t, as he bragged to Athena how one day it would be. Sometimes, when out on the water, he whispered her name, as if his voice would somehow be carried by one of its waves towards the mainland where she now had moved on with her life. Perhaps it was just as well. The sea, island life, was not for Athena. Perhaps things worked out the way they were supposed to.
* * *
It’s late in the afternoon now, and the sun peers through the clouds again, burning hot overhead, reflecting bright off the water. They sit on the floor of the boat, next to the tangled net, eating crusty bread, olives, and sardines from a tin.
‘Pappou? Are you sad that you no longer fish?’
‘I still do from time to time, but not like I used to. Your father has taken over now. I’m too old, now. An old man needs to rest and enjoy his life after a lifetime of toil.’
‘But you miss it.’
‘Sure, I miss it. I miss the sea.’ The old man smiles faintly. ‘But even now the sea still listens. It may not always forgive, but it listens. Maybe sometimes I come out here to remember what I should have heard years ago.’
Stavros looks at him, trying to understand. The old man knows he doesn’t, but that’s okay.
‘Maybe the sea does forgive, sometimes,’ the boy says. ‘She gives us fish, doesn’t she?’
The old man smiles and musses the boy’s hair. ‘You seem to understand more than I did when I was your age,’ he says.
When they finish eating, Thanos navigates the boat further out to sea. He cuts the motor and drops the anchor, looks up at the sky. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds again.
‘Are we going to be caught in a storm?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the old man says. ‘Here—help me with this net. We should have better luck here.’
They both toss the net overboard. Watching Stavros doing so reminds him of when he went out with his father, and how he first taught his own son. However, he doesn’t see Stavros following the tradition. It’s a different world now.
‘Pappou? Were you smart when you were young?’
Thanos smiles and looks at him. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I don’t know. I like to think I’m smart.’
‘You are very smart.’
Stavros smiles. ‘So were you?’
‘I used to think I knew everything,’ Thanos says. ‘That happens when you’re young. You eventually learn that you don’t.’
‘When did you learn that you didn’t?’
‘It just sort of happens.’
* * *
Athena did come back to the island, many years later. Thanos was not expecting her, nor did she announce her intention to return. One day, she just reappeared, standing on the dock as Thanos and a few other young men were loading his fishing boat. It took a while for him to notice her, but when he did, it stopped him in his tracks. She was more beautiful than ever. He didn’t approach her right away, for his pride wouldn’t allow it. Her turned his attention back to the task at hand. If she stayed, she stayed. If she left, so be it.
She did stay, watching him for quite some time. It was only after some coaxing from his fellow fishermen did he finally approach her. He was not in a forgiving mood.
‘You picked the worst time, you know,’ he said, taking off his cap and wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm. ‘Nets are tangled, the engine is acting up… I’m surprised to see you. What brings you here?’
‘I guess I should have told you I was coming,’ she said.
He just looked at her, his eyes roaming all over her body, as if looking at a ghost.
‘I waited to hear from you,’ he said. ‘Every day I checked my mailbox for a letter from you. Nothing. Why, Athena? Why are you here?’
‘I came because I felt we left things unfinished.’
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, ‘I was here. Waiting. Feeling like an idiot, hoping each day would be the day I finally heard from you.’
‘Thanos…’
‘Don’t, Athena. Just don’t. What do you want?’
‘I still care for you, Thanos. I felt that we should talk.’
‘It’s been eight years. What is there to talk about?’
‘Thanos, please…’
‘You say you still care for me. Do you know what caring means on this island? Maybe things are different on the mainland, but here it means loyalty and communication, respect.’
She didn’t say anything, but still held his gaze.
‘Your silence told me all I needed to know,’ Thanos said, and turned to walk away.
‘Silence isn’t always avoidance,’ Athena said. ‘Sometimes it’s simply trying to breathe.’
‘Breathe, you say. Do you think I don’t know what it feels like to choke on this place? I need to breathe, too. I loved you, Athena. I saw a future with you.’
‘Two people can still love each other but foresee different futures.’
‘If they really loved each other, they’d find a way to work things out.’
‘That wasn’t true for us,’ she said.
‘You didn’t even give it a chance. It was nothing more than a summer interlude for you. You never had any intention for it to continue, no matter what you promised.’
‘I never promised anything.’
Thanos didn’t say anything.
‘You made promises,’ she said. ‘Promises I never made. It was always about what you wanted.’
* * *
He and the boy begin to pull in the net. The boy’s hands are clumsy, but eager. Together they haul the dripping mesh from the water, revealing the wriggling sardines entangled in its weave.
‘We got some!’, the boy shouts.
The old man smiles. ‘See? Even when you don’t deserve it, the sea bestows her gifts upon you.’
‘Why do you say that we don’t deserve it?’
‘Well, maybe I don’t,’ Thanos says. ‘Perhaps this is a gift for you.’
They drop the fish into the waiting bucket.
‘Your father will be very proud of you when he gets home.’
‘He’s been gone a long time,’ Stavros says.
‘He’ll be back—and I’ll be sure to tell him how well you’re doing.’
Stavros smiles, looks up at his grandfather. ‘Do you miss her?’
The question startles the old man for a moment. ‘Yes, of course I do, sure.’
‘Does Yiayia know that?’
‘Yiayia doesn’t know anything about her. I never spoke of her.’
‘Would she get angry?’
‘No… but sometimes it’s best not to say anything.’
* * *
They had agreed to meet later in the evening, after work was done. Throughout the day, Thanos had reservations about the meeting. What good would it do? What was the point?
They met outside the taverna they often frequented but they did not go inside. Instead, they walked towards the cliff, where they often spent hours making love and looking out at the sea and the moonlight, and, if they were still awake, watching the sunrise as it slowly peered over the horizon. Going back there together had stopped time in its tracks, and he watched her sit on the rock as she always had, looking out at the sea, illuminated by moonlight. He sat beside her, but they still didn’t talk, for words were difficult to find.
Finally, after a long silence, Thanos says, ‘I am trying to build a life here. One where you and I were going to share, maybe have some kids, I don’t know. I hadn’t expected the day you left would be the last time I ever saw you. It all made sense to me before that.’
‘Made sense to you. You never bothered to ask what made sense to me.’
‘I thought you felt the same way.’
‘You never asked. You had it all planned out but you never asked and you never listened, either, even when I tried to talk to you.’
‘I thought you loved me.’
‘I did.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘I never asked you to wait.’
‘But I did wait. I waited anyway because you implied that you would be back. At first, I understood. We were young, you lived on the mainland. You just stopped answering my letters. You just disappeared, as if I never even existed.’
‘I wasn’t trying to break your heart, Thanos.’
‘You didn’t break it,’ he said. ‘You shattered it.’
‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ She looked at him, her eyes studying his face in the moonlight. ‘It was always about you, about what you wanted. You planned my life for me. You never asked me what I wanted. It was always about you. Even now, you’re not bothering to ask. It’s all about you and what you want, the injustice that was done to you.’
‘What was it that you wanted, then?’
Athena stares out towards the horizon, and the way the moonlight flickered upon the water like distant stars. ‘I couldn’t imagine a future had I stayed here. I would have resented you for it. I would have resented myself. Every time you spoke of it, I felt myself dying a little because I knew this was not what I wanted and it was going to hurt you to know that.’
‘So why didn’t you just explain that to me in your letters? Why continue to give me hope that you were going to come back? Why the silence?’
‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I wanted to, but I couldn’t.’
‘So you finally did come back. For what? To clear your conscience?’
‘To stop running from difficult conversations,’ she said. ‘To tell you that it wasn’t because you weren’t enough. It just wasn’t right for me.’
‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’
‘No. It’s supposed to help you understand.’
* * *
‘Pappou, why are you sad?’
Thanos smiles but doesn’t immediately answer him. Instead, he instructs the boy to help him untangle the fishing net. Did he look sad, he wondered? Even after all these years?
‘Sometimes you remember things from long ago,’ he finally answers. ‘And sometimes they aren’t pleasant memories. It’s too late to fix things that you may have broken, and you have to learn to live with that. Here, help me with the net.’
They spread the net out along the floor of the boat. Thanos traces the frayed cords with his fingers, along the space in which he had mended a thousand times.
‘It’s sort of like this net,’ he continues. ‘Even when you can find a way to mend it, it leaves scars. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, if you don’t know, you will one day. It’s not easy being a human being in this world. It’s not easy being a man.’
‘Papa always says that.’
‘Because he’s heard it from me so often.’
They pick up the net and toss it over the side. Thanos looks down into the water. He thought of Athena just then—her face, her eyes, her voice—as if she were somehow whispering to him from the depths of the sea. A distant echo which should no longer be, yet still remains.
* * *
‘You were the first person I ever loved,’ Athena said. ‘And I guess that kind of scared me. Remember, we were both very young.’
Thanos loved her, too, but he could not bring himself to say it. Instead, he remained silent, trying to process everything. After a very long silence, he said, ‘I was very angry with you for a long time. I hated you for the way you made me feel. I never felt that way about anyone before.’
That was about as close to an admission she was going to get, she realized. She reached out to touch his arm, then retracted her hand.
‘I was afraid,’ she said. ‘Afraid that had I decided to stay here, I’d become someone who blamed you for the choices I made. I couldn’t do that to you.’
‘There were nights I would sleep on the boat because I believed you would turn up at the dock. I don’t know why I thought that. It’s sort of silly, I know, but it was better than being alone in my room. The sea kept me company. Even still, I cursed you, cursed your name. I kept trying to convince myself that perhaps you needed time to consider things. Everyone laughed at me, said I was a fool to keep waiting for you, that I was stupid to hold on to hope. But I did hold onto hope, thinking of you constantly. Meanwhile, I wasn’t even a thought in your mind.’
‘I wanted to write you,’ she said. ‘But I just couldn’t do it. I felt every letter I wrote would tighten the bond between us, not loosen it. I had to make a clean break. At the time, I thought the best way to do so was silence. I knew the more we wrote each other, the harder it would have been. I regret that now. At the time, I didn’t see it that way.’
‘Was it because you met someone else?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
The admission stunned him. His eyes studied her face for a long moment, although he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. He turned away, looked out over the sea, the reflection of the moonlight upon the water. It’s an image that would always stay with him.
‘You know, the thing that gets me the most,’ he said, ‘the one thing I can’t let go of isn’t the fact that you went silent. It’s the way you slipped out of my life. Like a whisper. Like I wasn’t even worth saying goodbye to. I always felt grateful just to be around you, but now I’m merely sitting in your wreckage. I kept replaying things like a pathetic addict, wondering how someone who said they cared could simply vanish as if I were nothing.’
Athena didn’t say anything.
‘And I appreciate that you didn’t say you just needed space,’ he continued, ‘or that you were going through something, or anything else that would have insulted my intelligence. I kept reaching out and waiting. Do you know what it feels like to wait for a response that never comes? What did it feel like to wonder how someone you once made feel so alive must have felt about that, or did you even bother to think of that at all?’
‘Thanos, I…’
‘You chose avoidance, Athena. Why not just tell me this long ago, instead of leaving me in limbo? Who does something like that? When you went to bed at night, did I ever even cross your mind, or did this new love of yours erase me from your memory?’
‘I never promised you anything, Thanos.’
Thanos turned away, his eyes fixed on the sea, their whole brief history racing through his mind like a disjointed film. ‘I hated you for a long time, Athena,’ he said. ‘Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but that’s what it felt like. The rage I carried around with me for so long… it hurt, Athena.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you? For years it felt as if you were laughing at me. You’d read my letters and feel nothing but amusement, that it was nothing more than this peasant, not sophisticated enough for you. I imagined you gathered around your friends and laughing at me, laughing at the words I wrote.’
‘I never did such a thing.’
Thanos went silent for a long moment. ‘I know that now. I’d come to realize that a lot what I was feeling was of my own invention, but at the time, I was convinced it was deliberate disrespect.’
‘I never thought of you in such a way.’
He looked at her, trying to read her. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe…’
‘It’s the truth, Thanos.’
Thanos looked out towards the horizon and the shimmering moonlight on the water. ‘Well, what’s done is done,’ he said. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.’
‘It matters if you’re still hurting.’
‘And if you care that I am.’
Athena stood up, wandered towards the edge of the cliff, looked down at the waves crashing against the rocks. ‘And how I feel matters little,’ she said. ‘Even now.’
Thanos didn’t answer her.
‘Maybe it was a mistake coming back,’ she said.
‘Maybe.’
She turned to look at him. ‘It will always be about you, Thanos.’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
Without another word, Athena walked away.
He did not go after her.
* * *
They pull the net out of the water. Again it is filled with fish. They haul the net aboard, dump the sardines into the bucket with all the others.
‘What will we do with all these?’, Stavros asks.
‘You can take some home for your mother. I’ll take some home. The rest I’ll give to my neighbors and sell them at the market.’
They cast the net back into the water.
After a long time, Stavros asks, ‘Pappou, do you think she forgave you?’
It takes a long time to answer the boy, the weight of the years pressing down upon him. He looks out towards the horizon, the endless blue-grey gently rippling before him. He then closes his eyes to listen, for Athena’s voice rose from the sea.
‘I’d like to think so,’ he says, finally, still looking out towards the horizon. ‘The best I can hope for is that she did.’
‘Are you sorry you were so mean to her?’
‘Of course,’ Thanos says. ‘Sometimes when you’re young, you make mistakes, even though they don’t feel like mistakes at the time. It wasn’t that I was mean to her, exactly. Just selfish. I didn’t pay attention to her needs, her desires.’
‘That can be kind of mean,’ the boy says.
‘Yes, I suppose so. It’s important to listen to others, even if you think you’re right.’
‘Whatever happened to her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Thanos says. ‘Whatever happened, I just hope she led a happy life. That’s important to remember, too—to not wish ill will on others just because things don’t work out the way you wanted them to. This way, you don’t live a life full of regrets.’
‘Do you regret what happened?’
‘I used to, but I got over it eventually. I met your grandmother, found the love I was always looking for, though it was different from how I thought it would be.’
‘Different how?’
Thanos looks at the boy and smiles. ‘You’ll find out one day.’
They pull the net into the boat again. There are many fish, but not as many as before. They empty the net, dropping their catch into the bucket.
‘I think we have enough,’ the old man says. ‘We should start heading back.’
Thanos raises the anchor and starts the engine. The boy watches him, studying his every move. It’s another kind of love in the boy’s eyes, but he says nothing to the boy about it. He doesn’t need to. For the first time in years, Thanos feels at peace, and even if it only lasts a moment, he’s grateful for the feeling. As the boat makes its way towards the shore, he looks back at the horizon one final time. There, in the sea, he can swear he hears Athena’s voice whispering to him. A soft, distant echo.
© 2026 Julian Gallo All rights reserved.
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