Andreas

I'll share a small and weird but true story. While on the Navy for my obligatory  duty, I met this guy, Andreas. He was an ok, smily person. By birth, his body was asymmetrical. Left side limps were smaller than the right ones. He was wearing size 42 boot on one leg and 45 on the other. The Navy released him on the recruitment day, on medical reasons. But his father insisted Andreas to be recruited because it would be a disgrace for a Cretan not to serve his homeland. After a lot of pressure, including politicians interference, he joined the Navy, in an assistant role always. Yet he was proud to wear his uniform. He was also proud for his life before the Navy. He was a sailor in a boat of a big Cretan company, those who carry thousands of tourists from mainland Greece to Crete. He has worked for a while in a boat of the company that was in the route of Patra to Ancona as well. I saw tens of times his black and white photos from his time in Venezia and while on duty on the boat. I could tell hundreds of funny stories from Andreas.

It was a Sunday morning, exactly five years after I finish my duty in the Navy. I called my friends to meet for a coffee to celebrate, in a way, that event. I stopped in a kiosk to buy cigarettes. I don't know why, but I bought a newspaper as well. Coffee time in Greece means you meet around a table and chat for hours about politics and football and you gossiping about those not present. I opened the newspaper at some point. Read the sports pages and then just turned the pages randomly. I read the title of a small article in the inside pages. "Sailor finds tragic death after falling from a great height". It was Andreas who fell from the funnel of the same boat that he was always telling us about.