Street Scene before the Miracle

Note; this short story was originally published on 1 April 2023, on my Substack newsletter, The Traveller’s Literary Supplicant. Sign up on the link below to read the full story, as a paid TLS member.

By Christopher Deliso

Once again, at four o’clock in the morning, the telephone rang; it awoke Stelios, the air-force pilot, from a deep and dreamless sleep. And once again, there was no national-security emergency; no invitation to a dogfight with a Turkish pilot over airspace incursions or some similarly mundane affair.

It was just the angry woman from the bar again, demanding Stelios come collect his younger brother Petros, and return her stolen property too.

Stelios sighed, and rubbed his thinning hair, frustrated. He scrambled to throw on some jeans and his leather jacket over a black tee-shirt. He bounded down the apartment’s stairs and outside, towards the listless sleeping bars between their street and the waterfront.

The damp port air filled his lungs. Dawn itself was far off, perhaps in doubt, but Stelios walked with certainty, impatient, fixing his hair. He heard the missing brother before he could se him. And when he did, the usually expressionless pilot was astonished.

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