Where The Tentacles Go

by Pearl Z. Armeni, St Aloysius College Sixth Form

Many say that spring is the time when life is born again, when flowers blossom from the eaves with leaves like the wings of phoenixes. For me, however, it is summer.

Summer, when the glossy waters of high solstice shimmer like angelic dew. Ambrosia of the finest tints of gold where spume and salty salvation meet to rectify the soul. Island summers of my home resemble paintings by Claude Monet. Indeed, I like to believe that it is my grandfather and I in ‘Impression, Sunrise’. There we are, forever on our little luzzu boat, ready to scour the sea for nourishment. From the fattest of tunas to the plumpest of seabream, our nets could have put St. Peter’s to shame. Though still, I like to think it is God’s hand that guides us through lazy waters, our hearts forged in tradition and religion while our eyes are as wide as the traditional ones on our hull.

Though this time, my grandfather cannot follow, and my eyes hold only the sea. I am as alone as a seagull with no wings, a ballotra like the one in my picture books, but with no padded feet. I suck on olives from our family tree and walk on Aleppo needles like some forgotten saint, whose ship did not wreck but set sail without her. It is unfair for me to do what I am about to, though I do not care; the quicker I walk, the nicking and pricking of needles and pinecones send a thrill down my spine. My hair whips in the air and the second I smell the sea breeze and eye my purple friend, Little Widnet, I know I’m almost there.

The whispers of the windy evergreens tell me to turn back because I have no business on the sea alone. They tell me there is no friend who will save me should the ambivalent tendrils of water pull me under. I shake my head, spitting an olive pit at them. For if my nation’s favourite poet sang of my second home’s greatness, then why should I worry?

The sea was my friend, my grandfather’s, and till this day it remains the only place I feel alive. The only place I can still feel every fibre of my being tickle me like a parent would its child. Like my grandfather would.

When I pass by Little Widnet, greeting her solemnly, she dances with the zephyr, and I know it is a salute acknowledging our familiar fallen soldier. I dare not confront her longer when I hear the screeching homeward cry of a gull, so I begin to walk down, down, down the familiar path of cape sorrel and black ants before finally reaching the secluded spit of land peppered with fishing boats.

It does not take me long before I find her. Calypso, in all her colourful glory… she almost seems as though she were blushing, her red stripe as bright as ever with the scorching sunshine idolising her many colours and curious eyes. It was as if she were surprised to see me and questioned my presence by swaying against the salty breeze.

I throw my rucksack of equipment in her carvel-built embrace and plop myself inside, my feet slapping against the interior like a foetus in a womb. It is then that I begin to lift the traditional oars I had begged my grandfather to keep and not replace with motors, now pushing against the water. Each oar moves in tandem with my steadfast heart, each flick of spray and salt gives me an innate thrill each time I falter, for my muscles have grown weak with my weeping. But when I finally reach the familiar fishing spot near an open-mouthed cove, I understand the pain was worth it.

I had purposely decided to leave my cave of solitude in the late afternoon, instead of attending a world of withering white roses and marches for this moment. I was set to go back home with an octopus, something my grandfather had failed to do.

This multicoloured alien had always escaped my grandfather’s attempts at capture, so I presumed that if I were able to overcome this feat, I would be proving that in some ways my grandfather’s life, his legacy and hope, would continue. Deep down, I knew it was futile, that my weak and ill-equipped being would not allow me to succeed. Though such a notion took root in my mind the second I was given the bereaving news, this new mission gave me a newfound purpose which I had undoubtedly lost.

In fact, it fuelled me with a surge so great that I had not even thought to use a fishing pole and net. I opened my rucksack, a stench of crab meat wafting out, and dumped the contents equally in pots which I later tied to my boat and let drop down to the seabed. If I were to catch such a creature, I had to do it the hard way, my way. It was then that I lifted my shirt and tugged it off only to hear a plop in the water. My heart stopped. I looked down. Surely, I hadn’t already caught something?

But no, the only thing I saw was a watch.

My watch.

My grandfather’s heirloom watch.

It drifted downwards into the sea’s embrace, down, down, it’s face shining as if it waved goodbye as I, dumbfounded, watched it disappear. My heart lurched forward, and before I could even comprehend what I was doing I had grabbed my snorkel, ignoring the rest of my equipment, and dived down after it.

It was the one tether I had left to someone I had considered home, someone who gave me life when I felt mine slip out of my hands, like the grains of sand I would soon feel under my fingernails as I searched. I let myself fall deeper, pushing against the barriers of water with my hands to only be welcomed by a world of coral. Peach and aquamarine, vibrant ruby and a thousand shades of mauve.

I could already feel goosebumps prickle my skin.

I dived further, the pressure of all the water hitting me like a mallet to a gong as, frantic, I scared away all of the life in search of a trinket of a dead man long gone.

My life long gone.

No fish came to my rescue as my hands swerved against harsh coral, my fingers nicked and pricked by my movements, slow but precise.

I could have almost screamed had it not been for a flash of tangerine in the corner of my eye that stifled my cry. I turned around, suddenly feeling sick before I swam back up for some gulps of breath before descending back down.

And there, awaiting me patiently, was an octopus.

Far away from the baited traps I had placed, it eyed me curiously. I stared at it, my snorkel masking my hurt pride. Was it mocking me for the life I lost? Was it enjoying the pain I felt?

It eyed me as if I were the spooked animal and not the other way around, but before I even knew what was happening, it was swimming up to me, getting closer to me each time its sinewy tentacles splurged upwards. I noticed a familiar shining object clasped in one of its arms.

The watch.

Soon we were face to face, the octopus and I, and I could barely understand the situation before I noticed a scar so similar to my grandfather’s on its face. It closed its queer orbs delicately before lifting the shining arm with the watch up to me.

What did it want? Why wasn’t it dashing away as I lifted my own arm to take it?

My fingers grazed its rubbery skin, and my mind darted back to a time of me placing my own hand on my grandfather’s wrinkled one. My breath hitched, and I had to dash back up for some air before coming back down to the octopus, lifting its arm once again, offering me my reward.

I took it gratefully and the corners around its eyes crinkled almost as if it were smiling before moving gently away, slowly, slowly, and swimming back down to the depths, an arm waving, as if it were bidding farewell.

*                      *                      *

That day was one I know I will never forget. As I sit on my bed, the sound of sea waves lapping through my window, I smile for the first time in weeks. Now, I can look at the shimmering watch on my arm and comprehend the true precursor of my being. That while life as I knew it had seemingly dissipated away, there was still the possibility of it beyond the mortal planes, beyond the bustling shores, beyond the loud raucous people, beyond the song, the food, the heat. There, in the lull of waves and the deep horizon, nestled life in the Mediterranean.

Rooted in the Mediterranean

by Michael Mercieca, St Aloysius College Sixth Form

To quote the famous Thucydides: “The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.”

I believe this quote is very befitting for the story I’m about to tell, for it holds truth. Apart from being an olive tree myself (hence why I might favour the quote, too), I’ve been around for the past two and a half millenniums, living significantly longer than my relatives who don’t last much longer than 500 years. Therefore, I think it is fair for me to say that I’ve come to understand the nature of life, and more specifically, the nature of humanity. I’ve lived alongside them practically all my life, and I’ve crossed paths with people from all the greatest civilisations that thrived throughout the Mediterranean. So just as my kind helped form the earliest Mediterranean civilisations, I wish that the story of my life serves to unite the entirety of the Mediterranean people.

*                      *                      *

Life in Lebanon was lavish. The temperature was perfect for my family, with the sun out almost every day of the year, and the breeze from the sea cooling us down whenever we needed. I was only a tiny seed, yet my memory of the city of Tyre is still in perfect shape. Being on the mainland coast, we had a perfect view of the walled island ahead of us, seeing every boat entering and exiting from the two harbours, and the workshops and marketplaces covered in purple dyed sheets. However, the poor snails weren’t too happy about their obsession with the colour purple. Some even used to hide so as not to get turned into dye themselves.

It wasn’t long before I found myself on one of those boats, in the southern harbour. They had collected a basketful of my siblings and I, getting ready to send us to one of their trading outposts far out at sea. Naturally, we were initially in a state of panic. How far would we go? Were they taking us somewhere bitter and cold? What if we never got to see the Mediterranean Sun and Sea again, how would we survive then? Even on the journey itself, we couldn’t tell whether Mother would be forgiving or not. It wasn’t the first time we saw her unwavering power in the form of ferocious inland waves when she was angry.

Luckily, our worries couldn’t have been more wrong. The journey was quite a smooth one, with the sun accompanying us the entire way. Swallows heading to Africa occasionally stopped to rest on our boat and kept us company. Some had even been in the central Mediterranean region, which was where we were headed, telling us that the climate was practically the same as Lebanon, putting most of our worries at bay. And before we knew it, we had arrived in Malta.

Saying that the island is small is an understatement. I used to think that Cyprus was a small country, but I had never thought that a rock this size could end up being the home of half a million people today. Docking the boat, they initially left us at the principal port. While the environment was quite like that of home, the first few days on the island were not easy for me. I was left alone in this new country as most of my siblings got traded and sent to far-off human civilisations, ranging from Sicily in the North to even the Egyptians in the South. Unlike them, I wasn’t sent to some far-off country, but rather they planted me on an even smaller island within another natural port not far from the main one.

Life went smoothly from then on. My roots came to appreciate both the calcareous soils and the limestone beneath me, both of which my kind love. I was blessed with yet another beautiful view of the sea and a beach right in front of me, which I got to see more and more of as my trunk grew taller over the years. I met a variety of new birds migrating both North and South, who were kind enough to give me all sorts of updates on how my family was faring in their new homes across the waters, which were just as sunny and pleasant as the island I ended up on. And as soon as I was producing olives of my own, the Phoenicians kept me plenty company, taking good care of my fruit.

It was at this point that I came to truly understand how much these human beings valued us olive trees. They used us in such a wide variety of ways that I find it hard to comprehend. They pressed our fruit to extract our oils, which they then went on to use not just for cooking but also in lamps to light up their towns, and even in their perfumes and medicine to help them heal. Our produce was then shipped to these neighbouring civilisations found all around the Mediterranean basin where they used us in their own unique ways, whether as a form of offering to the Gods of the Greeks, or for use in anointing rituals in Rome. This was when I started to realise how a simple crop like me played such a large part in forming connections between these culturally different peoples. And that thought only made the news of war that much harder for me to process, when a honey buzzard coming from Italy perched in my shade and warned me of the incoming fleet.

It was a sight like I had never seen. The Romans ransacked the Phoenicians for all that they had, tearing down everything that they had set up along the harbours. It didn’t take them long to then move inland, also devastating their towns. I was in absolute shock. You could ask the fungi below me; the amount of distress signals my roots let off woke up the entire fungal system on my little island. And it all happened so suddenly; within days there was not one Phoenician left on the island. Had I not been stuck to the ground, I would have probably hidden in terror, because I had never seen anything as horrid as the mass slaughtering that had occurred. Not even Mother’s wrath had ever made me that scared. And the hardest part for me to comprehend was that these people killing each other were all the same species.

Now I’m not trying to say that I believe the Romans were particularly evil people, because I came to learn that most of the human civilisations that I lived alongside started fights of their own. Some I heard of from the usual migrating flocks keeping me up-to-date with affairs around the Mediterranean, while some others I was unfortunate enough to witness myself. As my life progressed on this island, Malta ended up falling under many other hands, and practically none of them came without bloodshed. There were the Arabs from North Africa, followed by the Normans coming from Sicily. There were even the French who came to occupy Malta, and after them the Brits too. And then, the innate greed and collective violence of these humans culminated in the largest war to date, World War II.

I don’t despise humans; I’ll make that clarification. Every civilisation left beautiful marks of deep culture and history wherever they went, as I could see around me, and so could my relatives all around the Med. I witnessed the construction of Malta’s current-day capital, Valletta, as practically every civilisation kept building and improving upon the peninsula in front of my island where it is found today. No, I think human beings are some of the most awe-inspiring creatures that roam this entire planet, the workings of their minds and imaginations being beauties in and of themselves. This story ends not with the downfall of humanity, but with quite the opposite.

For almost all my life, I witnessed one human group from one side of the Mediterranean fight with another side. Time and time again, they couldn’t come to terms and work alongside each other, so they opted for war. But after World War II, things changed. For the first time, people from all around the Mediterranean worked together peacefully, forming groups that pursued collective interests. It was the first time I ever witnessed the entirety of the Mediterranean Sea united.

To the reader who got this far, please note that I’m now a very old tree. My bark is barely intact, and I believe my day might soon come. But the story is not over, for it is being written till this day. The story of the Mediterranean is now in our hands and is our responsibility to write it as best as we can. We still face issues from our past, having made Mother quite angry, and the Mediterranean being one of the most potentially affected areas in the globe with climate change. And we still create new issues today that also need solving, with my very island, as one example, being at risk of being turned into yet another construction site. So we must look back at history, our past, and celebrate our achievements and how far we’ve come; but we must also learn from our mistakes. And as my wood weakens and my life comes to an end, may my broken branches act a symbol: the same symbol as they have always been for the united people of the Mediterranean Sea.

Mean

by Milan Najdov, G.F. Abela Junior College

             Well. Blooming crystals axiom breaking, shatterwaves folding in and over themselves Iwantyou. Crystallising ozone layer forming dewdrop artificial. The wave toppled over itself and it said to the star, I want you. And now I’m phoenished with you.

            Handle with care, taped to my forehead. Yes. We were shrouded in leaves and dewdrops, always. Sometimes at the beach, near the water, when you’d hold me and spin me around in your arms, and I’d feel your wrists near my waistband. And when we were out of the water, you’d run your hands through my hair, filled stiff with salt. I’d watch the waves topple over each other and utter a verse under my breath. Barefoot walking around the beach, and we’d stop, just so you could hug me. You were always much bigger than me.

            I hope you’re reading this, you broken thing. We were in the driveway when it started. You leaned into me and I felt it but we stayed silent. Remember when you didn’t believe what I was saying, when I told you that I was broken? Look at what happened now. Glassglasses. You broke them once, and they were so wonky, and you were so ugly, and I remember, when you didn’t have enough money to buy new ones, and you didn’t tell anyone. And you were so ugly, but I loved you still.

            I knew it. I knew you, back then. I felt it in me, and I could see it from a mile away. I could see into the future with a faux, petty, inherited clairvoyance through wild eyes, I could see that I would be mourning. I knew it. I knew myself. I was told I would feel like water when you left and I did. Don’t you remember?

            Do you hate the south? I don’t. I don’t hate the south. I swear I don’t. The south was empty. Empty as craters are. Like something eradicated, destroyed, where twolips grew close to each other under industrial machinery. Remember, when we climbed over that construction site, to see that villa that they were building? We swore we’d stone them dead. We swore we’d choke them with the flowers that they’d ruined.

            The south was the south. People would look at us weird, but we loved the south. The south lacked a soul. The south was concrete dreams and locked up princesses in fairy tales. The south was the rainbow path to escape. The south was the route to the pyramids. We never went, we never stayed. I remember how it felt, when me and him went around the perimeter, and the sun was boiling us alive like frogs, and we couldn’t breathe, and.

            Well. It was thick, I remember how the air got thicker and thicker over the years. I met you back then, and the air was thin, crystalclear breathingfilm blooming. And then it was thick. No one could breathe anymore. Except us, we built our own world around the thickness. We made it thicker until we could eat it, for God’s sake. Remember the butterflies? How you used to pick them up with your fingers for only a few seconds and then let them go. That was when I knew you liked to hurt for fun.

            The hospital’s top that overlooked the valley was now desolate. The valley was now desolate. From twolips become onelips and barren wastelands consumed me, barren wastelands consumed the earth.

            I split your head open on the pavement and water came out leaking like a fountain, I drank from. I drank from I would I wood scraping your back brokenbrown. Don’t do that again. A way a lone you scorched my head off. I remember everything.

            The way you wrote stuff, on little scraps of paper, anyone would think they were picked out from the trash; but not me. I remember your messy handwriting, sharp loops and disconnected letters. You wanted to write in cursive so you could be pretty for me. The scrapes and taps of the pencils you used and sharpened against leaflets, only to tell me something I already knew. It was a warning, and I didn’t listen. It was a warming, but I didn’t listen.

            Up. Shine. Up. Up. Up. Up. Look up there. Where I’m pointing.

            North. I loved the north, until he broke it. Until he took it in his hands and snapped its spine apart vertebrae breaking down neck bending low face looking soil, weeping willow. I wanted to make her promise, please, let me use your spine when you die so I could drink the spinal fluid and have you in me. She died and her spine was snapped by him.

            I thought I’d get what I wanted. The north was always disappointing. It always broke me, when I went. When I’d see the fields, summeroversummer, get smaller and smaller until there weren’t any left. Inhabitants of paradise will always try to take it from you to sell you apples covered in wax.

            The north was supposed to be colder but it was only dryer and higher. Siccative of the lungs and the face. Dried up vinegar breaking molecular structures on our skin. You rubbed sand on my knees in a circular motion, outwards, outwards, going slowly to the center. Always approaching the middle.

            You always said you hated the things you can’t control. You always said that people would take the rockiest path possible to get to your heart, to the center of your being, and spin you, and spin and spinspin in circles until flowers bloomed. The center was rotten in both of us. Sauna almostspicyheat infiltrating our nostrils, steamed, burnt-out, mosscovered mold. The centre rolled out before our eyes. The centre made us dizzy, tripped us over, broke us into three.

            We were sick. Bacteria swimming in our guts and our mouths. We were stuck in the hospital’s palliative care wards. There was nothing we could do. It was gone, done, dusted, over. I saw myself climbing the rainbows upwards to the place we’d always talk about. A sweltering summer where we could sit under the shade cloudedshrouded simmeredover under the trees. It would all be red and yellow, and blue.

            The red and yellow blue signs rise up once more to break the continuously existing barrier of space-time revolutionary bad children growing to be the sun of the system. An affluent effluvium of burning up coagulated ozone layers one by one peeled up and over like the subtle layers we wear in winter to protect from the icy blue. There’s nothing to fear. Keep moving. Move along now, no one’s going to wait for you.

            Move along now.

            Well, when you couldn’t take it any longer to stay in that house of yours because it felt like a store you decided to pack your bags and take things from the house, like a store. Anyways, you continue taking these things and stacking them and you realise they are of no value to you. You fill up your suitcase with several categories of things. First, things that make you sentimental. You will miss these beatings, and all the green vines and branches tapping on your windows, and the clock that went tick-tick-tick that you listened to every time you couldn’t sleep. And you took all the portraits drawn of Amelia, your friend, and you steal a lock of someone’s hair. Whose? You don’t know.

             Emerald green. That was what you called your memories. Pukish emerald green, shining like stained glass, right back at your eyes, reflecting, but piercing you. It was all shrouded. Always. The garlands you wore around your head were to make you stop being dizzy from all the things going on around you. You spun around until you got dizzy enough to get drunk off of the dizziness.

             You had to hold yourself until you could leave. Leave. Leave. Right now. You had to jump, pack your bags, and leapve off that building. Up and over the clouds you left with bruises, but you left. I swear, I can still feel you. I can see you in the north. I can see you in the south, I can see you. Roll out over me again