Bøger af Anastasia Kalantzi

In summer, in a Northern country... Socophles walks hand in hand with his best friend, Celina, at the waterfront which nevertheless looks like a big lake. They are going straight to buy Aristotle's famous ice-cream, who is the owner of a small wooden cottage a few steps from the village, just on the edge of a wooden platform where the fisherman villagers attach their little dories... That little mite, Socophles, as you all can quite obviously understand, in fact, his right name is Sophocles. Yet, when he was a tiny kid of two or three years old and used to hold a piece of white chocolate in his hand almost all the time, whenever he was asked telling his name, he would always say ''Socophles''! Ans so, that's how indeed all his friends and his family also call him until now! And since it's me too, from my own part, that I may consider myself as one of his best friends, I'm not going to thwart their plans by not calling him like that, just because that's the way it is anyway and it doesn't matter at all if my little daughter always keeps correcting me in that every time I'm telling her this story. Indeed, the big truth is that both Socophles and Trelantonis alone - especially the last one, famous Penelope Delta's greatest literary hero - she only could accept outright as her boys-heroes in that story's band. Because she always likes to listen to stories that include one princess. Not to mention... two in that case in point! To be honest, Socophles himself, looks just like a typical ice cream vendor in that exquisite way of wearing his both snow-white t-shirt and snow-white trousers. Her mother seems mostly completely desperate and almost out of her mind about her own son's case: in their household, they do the laundry at least three times a day, but in addition to that there's a whole wardrobe literally stuffed with snow-white linens, as you'll be able to see further down by yourself too, because all Socophles' snow-white clothes are constantly dirty and almost covered in mud and when all is said and done her poor mother could possibly not be knackered herself out washing his clothes all day long!....The magic snow-white story's continuance awaits you all to make you lose your head a little bit in a world of real dreams or not ... it will depend on the warmth of our heart ...

La princesse jaune aimait les princes qui portaient exclusivement des bluejeans. Elle adorait tellement les lunes et cela dit se demandait toujours du fait étrange que tous les autres gens autour d'elle n'en voyaient qu'une seule dans le ciel. Pourtant, elle-même, presque tous les soirs, elle avait l'habitude d'avoir un verre de vin rouge en se promenant lentement dans les ruelles pittoresques des alentours de la Ville Centrale du Royaume et comptant des lunes jaunes à la fois, tandis que d'autres autour d'elle comptaient les étoiles. Il n'a pu jamais comprendre comment ça pourrait-il arriver et il n'a eu personne jusqu'ici qui puisse voir autant de belles lunes jaunes dans le ciel. Mais, quel dommage... Une nuit alors qu'elle marchait lentement et regardait en haut, dans les airs, elle a pu entendre une voix basse lui demander: Ma jeune fille, combien de lunes y a-t-il aujourd'hui dans le ciel ? Est-ce peut-être 11 ou douze ? Ce soir, il y en a dix, elle lui a répondu, L'une d'elles, bien sûr, c'est la manche à air de la Tour . La princesse alors avait l'impression intense que ses jambes perdaient le contact avec la terre. Quelques gouttes de vin ont débordé dans la rue. Est-ce possible qu'elle survolait ? Mamie, tu vois, il y a quelque chose ici qui va de travers... ça ne marche pas si bien..., la princesse sans nom lui a dit alors. Mais pourquoi, mon enfant ? Mais, il est hors de question qu'une princesse jaune bût jamais du vin rouge. N'est-ce pas toi-même alors celle qui m'affirmait toujours qu'elle n'aimait que tout ce qu'il a été jaune ? Bon, d'accord... Je vais le reprendre... Elle avait donc un verre de citronnade Mais alors, la citronnade n'est pas jaune ! Oui, mais, c'est bien les citrons qui sont jaunes Ah, bon... ... Elle avait donc un verre de citronnade en se promenant lentement dans les ruelles pittoresques des alentours de la Ville Centrale du Royaume, la grand-mère a continué...Quand même les paupières de la princesse sans nom se sont mises à alourdir par envie de dormir. C'était elle-même maintenant qui survolait dans les airs au-dessus d'un pré plein de marguerites jaunes comme les citrons... Ouais, la princesse jaune adorait également les coquelicots rouges... C'est ça !, fut sa dernière pensée avant de s'assoupir... Bon, mamie a pété les plombs un petit peu ! Mais en tout cas, si la princesse sans nom s'est endormie finalement, le conte, c'était complétement impossible de freiner son trajet féerique. Et même si la grand-mère ne lui en parlait plus... Le conte va poursuivre en lui-même ! La princesse jaune donc a continué à survoler dans le ciel. Et tout à l'inverse, elle avait un nom. On l'appelait Chrysanthème. Et c'était précisément ce nom de femme particulier que la voix chuchotait doucement derrière elle, juste au moment où elle-même s'élevait au-dessus du grand Fleuve Jaune en voyant maintenant de loin ses rives bien-aimées se perdre de vue. La voix poursuivait d'une manière littéralement monotone de l'appeler: ''Chrysanthème'', ''Chrysanthème'', ''Chrysanthème''... En outre, elle se sentait bien étourdie aussi: qu'est-ce qui lui a arrivée alors ? Pourquoi donc devrait-elle vouloir ce verre du vin rouge, au moment où elle ne buvait que de la citronnade délicieuse ? La suite surprenante vous attend ! L'amour idéale existe quand même et pas dans nos rêves...

The princess arrived at the Palace very late at night. She had lost all the men of her escort because of the terrible storm that had suddenly erupted... She asked to be invited to spend the night safely. "I'm a princess", she told them. "A real princess?", the Queen asked her then. "But, of course, yes!", she answered. However, the Queen did not really seem to believe what she was saying to her, but finally to be completely assured about that, she summoned the maids and ordered them: "You're going to put our thickest mattresses on the bed where she goes to sleep in a while and just above them make the bed with the softest duvets available in the Palace. Though, underneath all this, you're going to carefully put that pea in there", and she took out a little green pea from her elegant bag and gave it to them. They did exactly what have been ordered by the Queen and prepared properly the room for the young supposedly princess... The princess had a hot bath, took her dinner with the company of the King, the Queen and their precious, only son, the handsome young prince. Subsequently, tired and exhausted as she was, she went to sleep having taken as usual in her arms her beloved doll with which she could never part whenever she was, as it seems. To tell the truth, she was some special doll made specially for her by her grandmother the Queen, exclusively manmade of a thread literally immersed in a natural color of poppies and red anemones... She fell asleep smiling and finally dreamed of a green rain of peas... She dreamed, supposedly, that she had gone outside the Palace to pick them up and then she was cooking a marvelous everlasting peas soup that was beautifully fragrant, scented and comforting for the cold weather. It was precisely the recipe of tasty soup that the "green princess" loved to taste too, as her grandmother often told her. There have always been different stories related to colorful princesses just like a whole series of colorful dolls that her grandmother almost all the time and especially manmade of the most resistant and durable yarns and colors she collected by herself among the trees, the meadows, the mountains... In addition to that, the grandmother had the strange habit of visiting her in her dreams. The fact of how she could achieve that so wonderfully, it was indeed some great mystery! And there she was right now wherein that bizarre evening, she came back again to find her granddaughter the princess to reveal to her the great secret of the everlasting pea soup. But then, what could possibly be the meaning of that dream? Nevertheless, what was really sure was that the next morning, the princess - whose name nobody knew until now - was the first to wake up early in the morning and by the way having in her mouth the true taste of everlasting pea soup with all the real sensation of its necessary ingredients: dill, carrots, lemon, though even all the scents of a vegetable garden through some sweet summer night. In fact, our princess had very well known the second small kitchen vegetable garden of her grandmother the Queen. She often gave her a good helping hand in grooving the garden to sow and water all kinds of plants and season vegetables. They both cut the ripe vegetables, one next to the other, and put them in a row in their basket. At any time of the year, they were so but so plenty of natural and nutritious earth treasures for each of them: lettuce, green and red cabbage, fresh onions, leeks, spinach, dill, fennel that requires a lot of water to grow and also parsley, artichokes that were just perfect to make them stuffed for dinner, dry beans and haricot beans, peas and pods that are still not the same thing, lentils, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and zucchini with their splendid flowers to be cooked and served stuffed too...Dear friends of mine, little and grown up ones, the story continuance isn't going to be so easy like in other stories...Let's follow it..

The... ghosts! It's been quite often said that once the mirror is broken into thousand pieces, you will have hundred percent a whole series of seven years of all sorts of misfortunes to wait for in your life in the end! What should you do then in return to bring a whole new series of other seven years of joy and happiness this time in your life next to that? Let me be the one in that case who is going to disillusion you about that sensible situation right away: if you please, do open a beautiful, playful kindergarten in your own yard! It's been about a whole year now since me and my daughter have managed to inaugurate a truly genius, completely atypical kindergarten in our large and abloom yard and it really looks like ever since that very same inauguration day, some totally different breath of fresh air, a big blow of revitalizing oxygen has spread all over both our childhood wonderland and our hearts. There's no longer neither the noise of all those plaintive and grumbling tears of our neighborhood's children, but nor their mothers' nervousness, squeaks and chidings as back then. Once they get up, my cutie pies, in the early morning and rush so happily, chirping joyfully and loudly just like little birds a while before dawn, in their first nursery school! They run immediately to meet my eldest daughter, my pretty and heroic Lia, who was already waiting impatiently to enfold them lovingly one by one. As for me now, I've already begun to think it over quite seriously indeed about what precisely I should have to do right after the end of all these seven happy years to eventually extend our happiness as much as I could. But, there again, you might as well tell me why should that be nothing else more than seven years, anyway? Oh, well, it was precisely seven the number of the years with the ''lean and fat cows'' into King Pharaoh's dream, which respectfully symbolized the years of poverty and wealth; and on the other hand, it was exactly the years of hunger and abundance that followed. These codified and scrambled numbers are not random at all, right? I really don't know, but as far as I'm concerned, but I'm just about to believe in all this which truly seems to me a little bit ciphered and confused. Unfortunately, or not, it doesn't really matter to me what may people say in any case, I've started also to believe in supernatural powers, even in ghosts, and finally I've seriously lost the plot and believe me, this isn't a joke at all... I cannot help remembering right now everything that happened one day with the ghost of the small cemetery, located in the suburbs around Argos, one of the most historical cities in Peloponnese. Oh, God, what was that awfully diabolical and living nightmare back then?! Poor me! Frankly, it was really something far more horrible and unbearable than kelpie itself ... We have gone on a very nice gateway trip all day long, being joined the Peloponnese tour group. We all gathered there, my best friends, John, Nelly and me. It was just in the middle of the summer, and at that time the heat was extremely unbearable; it really was a torrid summer day. We had arrived quite late at night in the historic city of Argos and, as we were all completely exhausted after such a long journey and literally tuckered-out with that scorching heat, and right after nibbling, of course, some juicy pork chops in light mustard sauce in the hotel's restaurant, we have all conked out at about twelve o'clock; still, we did anything else but falling asleep! The whole room of the hotel was just grilling through that August moth's suffocating heat and humidity. We got redressed then and went out in the slightest night breeze straightaway. We took the central public road and without even realizing it, we've found ourselves outside the city, right in its prairies' countryside area. We continued to walk... (...) The continuance means always to get you surprised..!

She saw a dream... She was in an orange car. With dad and mom. Around them, there were sounds of music. You could call it purple... With all sorts of red and yellow fairy tales in her, she cried pouring tears of joy that ran down her cheeks. When she wiped away her cheeks with the tips of her fingers... those ones turned orange. -Where are we going to? She asked her mother.-But, my sweetheart, to make the orange trip that you've always wanted so much! The road they were following joined the Orange State of the Moon with the Purple Night. The road was really made of a silk fabric and embroidered by a bird-tailor who just escaped many years ago through the hands of the seamstress of the Palace... Oh, that's true! It was a rather confused dream for her! She didn't understand it very well anyway. Quite on the contrary, it was particularly herself that the grown-ups didn't understand at all, as usual. Everyone considered her great love for the orange colour as a great strangeness. It was called such as m a n i a. Since the time she was a too small baby, her mom was telling her about, she had grabbed a small orange rattle in her little hands and couldn't be without it all day long. She wasn't wearing anything that wasn't in an orange colour. She didn't eat also anything that had a whole other colour. Until her parents were aware of all this, she fought hard for that. She knows very well that she was going to drive them almost crazy about that issue. Though, despite everything, she couldn't do differently! Walking slowly into the dark, silent house, she went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and looked carefully in its shelves and drawers: she took a carrot, filled a glass of orange juice and went out to the balcony. An orange half-moon was bending softly towards the bottom of the horizon... Tomorrow morning, they would all go on a journey. Their suitcases waited patiently down in the corridor for the dawn to rise. Her own suitcase was orange... but what else then?! Until now, she had never travelled again by plane! It was the very first time that she was going out of the country! They were going to fly to Spain - her dad had already shown her its geographical point onto the global map and told her also lots of wonderful stories for poets, writers, great painters and brave bullfighters - the famous toreros. They were going to rent a car (and most of all, it was she the one who chose it on the Internet-shop, and it was really an astonishing, brilliant orange Volkswagen) and would go to magical cities, as mom also said. And of course, they intended to go through Portugal - although she still insists on calling it ''Portokalos-Orange''.But, moreover, she also thought that the famous poet going by the name of Lorca, being so much loved and admired by her mother and who had indeed the most beautiful look she had ever seen, should be a resident of the ''Portokalos-Orange'' country. Besides, who else could ever write such a beautiful song for an orange tree? "Below the orange tree, she's washing her cotton dresses She has green eyes and a purple voice" ♫♪ But, why did mom's face, ordinarily cheerful and welcoming, get darker every time she listened to that song? Why did dad grab her hands? Marianna drank her last sip, took another look at the moon and went to sleep... "I'm going on a plane, And look at the world from there, from the top of the world..." ♫♪From the first moment that Marianna was found herself on the plane, she couldn't satisfy at all her enormous enthusiasm to look all around her and finally ask to know all about she always wanted to understand. From the moment they started to take off, the Earth was getting smaller and smaller in front of her eyes. Let's see together then that marvellous, dreamy country that Marianna had always in her heart... it might look like that one in our own dreams too!

Les... fantômes ! On dit très souvent qu'une fois le miroir brisé en mille morceaux, t'en devras carrément attendre la fin d'une série entière de sept ans de toutes sortes de porte-malheurs dans ta vie ! Qu'est-ce-que tu devrais faire en contrepartie pour apporter cette fois-ci alors une toute autre série de sept ans de joie et de bonheur ? Laissez-moi être cette personne qui va vous faire ouvrir les yeux sur la situation tout de suite: veuillez plutôt inaugurer une école maternelle dans votre propre cour. Il y a eu environ un an jusqu'ici qu'on a inauguré une école maternelle géniale et atypique dans notre cour et on dirait vraiment que dès ce moment-là, un courant d'air tout à fait différent, une bouffée d'oxygène rajeunissante a soufflé dans notre cour de merveilles de l'enfance. Il n'y a plus ni toutes ces larmes plaintives et grognonnes des enfants de notre voisinage, mais ni cette nervosité des mères d'autrefois. Ils se lèvent, mes poussins, au petit matin et se précipitent joyeusement, en gazouillant fort comme des petits oiseaux avant l'aube, dans leur première école maternelle ! Ils courent immédiatement rencontrer ma fille aînée, ma jolie et héroïque Lia, qui les attendait impatiemment pour les serrer bien fort dans ses bras. Quant à moi, je me suis déjà mise à réfléchir très sérieusement à ce qu'il me fallait faire à la fin de ces sept années heureuses pour enfin prolonger notre bonheur d'autant plus que je peux. Mais bon, vous pourriez bien me dire pourquoi ça ne devrait être que sept ans ?! Eh, bien, mais c'était justement sept le nombre des années avec les ''vaches maigres et grasses'' dans le rêve du roi Pharaon qui symbolisait respectueusement les années de la pauvreté et de la richesse; et ce furent exactement les années de faim et d'abondance qui suivirent. Ces nombres codifiés et brouillés ne sont pas aléatoires du tout, non ? Je ne sais vraiment pas, mais, moi quand même je suis en train de croire à tout cela qui me semble un peu chiffré et confus. Malheureusement ou pas, peu m'importe en tout cas, j'ai commencé à croire aussi aux pouvoirs surnaturels et même aux fantômes et en être enfin sérieusement sur le cul et ce n'est pas une blague du tout... Je me souviens maintenant de tout ce qui s'est passé un jour avec le fantôme du cimetière situé dans les banlieues aux environs de la ville d'Argos. Oh, mais qu'est-ce-que c'était ce cauchemar diabolique et vivant alors ? Pauvre de moi ! Franchement, beaucoup plus qu'un kelpie... On avait fait une très belle escapade dans la brousse sur la journée avec le club d'excursion de Péloponnèse. On était là Jean, Nelly et moi. Il était juste au milieu de l'été et la chaleur était insupportable, vraiment une journée torride. Nous étions arrivés assez tard dans la nuit à la ville historique d'Argos et, comme on était tous complétement crevés avec un si long voyage et tués de la chaleur, après avoir grignoter des côtelettes de porc avec une sauce légère à la moutarde au restaurant de l'hôtel, on a pioncé tous à douze heures environ. Mais, on faisait tout autre chose, sauf dormir ! Toute la chambre de l'hôtel grillait avec cette chaleur et l'humidité du mois d'Août. Nous nous sommes rhabillés et sortis. Nous avons pris la voie publique centrale et sans même nous en rendre compte, nous nous sommes trouvés hors de la ville, dans la plaine. Nous avons continué à marcher sur le chemin de terre entre les divers potagers arrosés qui sentaient maintenant la fraîcheur de la nuit, avec toutes les odeurs odoriférantes de la terre mouillée et de tous ces fleurs des champs autour qui poussaient là-haut dans les prairies. Le seul grondement qu'on entendait, c'était justement les tri-tri aigus des grillons partout sur les arbres et de temps à autre les hurlements menaçants des chiens en passant devant un village endormi. Je ne sais pas m

The whole gamut of human feelings consists, in essence, of incentives for action, of instantaneous plans to simply cope with life itself, which evolution has transmitted within us. The root of the word ''emotion'', properly speaking (the term emotion, respectively in Latin, is the verb movere: move) seeks mainly to imply that each one's natural tendency to take action is purely inherent. The fact that emotions are leading us to spontaneous acts becomes sufficiently obvious if we notice carefully and painstakingly little children and animals. It is only the ''civilized'' adults, from the whole animal kingdom, the ones who are likely to respond to this striking ''anomaly'', in other words, to see emotions / feelings (i.e. the basic percepts for action) completely detached from their normal reaction. Within the framework of our emotional repertoire, each of the human emotions, without any exception at all, plays a unique role according to what has been revealed about their distinct biological composition. With new methods of penetrating both the human body and brain, researchers are discovering an increasing number of psychological details about how each emotion prepares the human body for a completely different kind of response. In anger's state of mind, the blood flows in our hands and allows us to catch, unfortunately or not, a firearm or to attack an enemy more quickly. The heartbeats increase and an explosion of hormones (like adrenaline) causes a sort of energy so intense that it can lead us into an operational activity. In a state of fear, the blood moves to the large skeletal muscles, for instance, on the legs, which facilitates us to take off at a scuttle or running; therefore, the human face ''becomes pale'', pretending as though the blood is gradually draining (thus, creating the known feeling of ''freezing up from fear''). At the same time, the body literally cools, even briefly, eventually giving us the opportunity to find time to test the seriousness or rather the judicious part of our reaction to escape. The multiple circuits in the brain's emotional centers cause a secretion of hormones that precisely puts the whole body on the alert, making it completely irritable and ready for action, while human attention is focused on the immediate threat so as to better evaluate the desired reaction. One of the main biological changes towards human happiness is the increase of activity in a brain center that specifically inhibits negative emotions, thus increasing the available energy, and also soothes those centers that provoke agitated and upsetting thoughts. Nevertheless, there is no particular change in the biosynthetic state of the human, apart from a general calm that makes the body quickly recovering from the momentary biological upheaval of disturbing emotions. This situation gives the body the proper conditions to rest in general, but also to be significantly armed with any kind of preparation and enthusiasm for any kind of activity, as well as to fight for a wide range of purposes. Feelings of love, tenderness and sexual satisfaction involve the stimulation of the parasympathetic, bio-somatic antipode of activation stimulated by fear and anger, commonly referred to as a ''fight or flight'' reaction. The parasympathetic model, generally known as the ''relaxation reaction'', is a set of bodily reactions that causes a general state of rest and satisfaction, thus facilitating the collaboration between mind and body. Our eyebrows' lifting by surprise allows us to obtain a wider angle of view (or perhaps a ray of light) and thus let a little light to fall on the retina of the eye. This helps to provide more information about the unplanned event, which allows us to better understand what is happening in front of/around us and to decide on the most appropriate course of action. (...) (...)