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COMING SOON
NOON is a collection of six works written by Efthimis Filippou: Apologiae 4 & 5; Scenes; Various Picks Petros; Rob; Haemata; and Liver.
NOON is available as a limited edition box set (pictured) and eBook.
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Liver
Fiction by Efthimis Filippou
Translated by Kyriacos Karseras
Book Six of the NOON collection
First edition in any language
-
the man’s heart
O God, look how beautifully her liver dances, dressed in those lovely clothes. Even though I, his heart, suffer knowing that his love might die, I cannot help but admire how beautifully her liver dances. Look at it inside her injured belly, wearing those cotton trousers soaked in her blood, dancing with such grace, such precision, like she doesn’t care if she dies soon or not. Very well done, liver. Your dancing is incredible.
the woman’s heart
She’s not going to die. I, her heart, won’t let her die. I, her heart, won’t stop – I swear that, in front of everyone here. It’ll be one of those cases doctors call a medical miracle. We’d given up all hope, her relatives will say, but she survived, and then they’ll cry, hugging, all happy. And given that I am also in charge of the amount of love she feels for him, and its intensity, I know that it wouldn’t be right for me – her heart – to stop and take her life when I’ve gone to such pains to make her love him. Because I was the one who insisted that she love him – she didn’t want to, she was almost disgusted by him, but I convinced her that she had to fall in love with him because if she didn’t fall in love with him then she’d regret it for ever, she’d regret it her whole life. And she listened to me and loved him like nothing else in the world.
the man’s head
I, his head, sunk in a pillow beside her, have been thinking the last few days that I love her like nothing else in the world. I, his head – with his grey hair, his closed eyes, his pretty little mouth, and his milk-white cheeks – feel burdened with a great responsibility since I’m the one that somehow has to think of something to tell her if she wakes from her coma and asks me in terror whether she’s going to die or not. That’s something I have to do, his head, with his grey hair, because it’s not like his oesophagus can think. His spinal column can’t either. Not even his foot can think. It only knows how to rest against her when they’re both sleeping, for as long as they’re sleeping. So it’s up to me to think of something, and quick.
the man’s foot
Yes, you’re the one that has to do that. I, his foot – with my trim toenails and soft sole – rest against her foot each time we sleep. Think of something to tell her if she asks us whether she’s going to die or not? No, I can’t do that. Shut away inside his brown leather shoe that’s always tightly laced, slipped inside his dark blue sock that’s made of cotton, I have – for 62 years now – come into contact with concrete, marble slabs, pebbles, wooden floors, and mud, but the thing I remember most intensely of all is touching the sheet a little and her feet a little, with their trim nails and beige toes, each time we sleep. There have been many times when I, his foot, have ordered his hand – with its trim nails, and fingers tufted with white hairs – to write her a note each morning. I don’t know what it was it wrote her, and I don’t know if her eyes were in good enough shape to read his hand’s writing clearly, but I think it wrote her nice things each morning because each night, she would kiss me with her mouth and wash me with water and salt and lemons. Now I, his foot – flexed and still, as he sits in the chair opposite her bed – look at the door to the room and look at her hair and then look at the watch lying upside down on the bedside table with the dial facing downwards and gently wiggle my toes every few seconds and think to myself that I could maybe help her somehow. That I could maybe push inside her and pass through her lower intestine to reach into her abdominal cavity, and that I, his foot, with my big toe, could stop up the hole in her liver caused by that sharp object during the accident. Maybe that way I can save her, I thought.
[...]
Fiction by Efthimis Filippou
Translated by Kyriacos Karseras
Book Six of the NOON collection
First edition in any language
-
the man’s heart
O God, look how beautifully her liver dances, dressed in those lovely clothes. Even though I, his heart, suffer knowing that his love might die, I cannot help but admire how beautifully her liver dances. Look at it inside her injured belly, wearing those cotton trousers soaked in her blood, dancing with such grace, such precision, like she doesn’t care if she dies soon or not. Very well done, liver. Your dancing is incredible.
the woman’s heart
She’s not going to die. I, her heart, won’t let her die. I, her heart, won’t stop – I swear that, in front of everyone here. It’ll be one of those cases doctors call a medical miracle. We’d given up all hope, her relatives will say, but she survived, and then they’ll cry, hugging, all happy. And given that I am also in charge of the amount of love she feels for him, and its intensity, I know that it wouldn’t be right for me – her heart – to stop and take her life when I’ve gone to such pains to make her love him. Because I was the one who insisted that she love him – she didn’t want to, she was almost disgusted by him, but I convinced her that she had to fall in love with him because if she didn’t fall in love with him then she’d regret it for ever, she’d regret it her whole life. And she listened to me and loved him like nothing else in the world.
the man’s head
I, his head, sunk in a pillow beside her, have been thinking the last few days that I love her like nothing else in the world. I, his head – with his grey hair, his closed eyes, his pretty little mouth, and his milk-white cheeks – feel burdened with a great responsibility since I’m the one that somehow has to think of something to tell her if she wakes from her coma and asks me in terror whether she’s going to die or not. That’s something I have to do, his head, with his grey hair, because it’s not like his oesophagus can think. His spinal column can’t either. Not even his foot can think. It only knows how to rest against her when they’re both sleeping, for as long as they’re sleeping. So it’s up to me to think of something, and quick.
the man’s foot
Yes, you’re the one that has to do that. I, his foot – with my trim toenails and soft sole – rest against her foot each time we sleep. Think of something to tell her if she asks us whether she’s going to die or not? No, I can’t do that. Shut away inside his brown leather shoe that’s always tightly laced, slipped inside his dark blue sock that’s made of cotton, I have – for 62 years now – come into contact with concrete, marble slabs, pebbles, wooden floors, and mud, but the thing I remember most intensely of all is touching the sheet a little and her feet a little, with their trim nails and beige toes, each time we sleep. There have been many times when I, his foot, have ordered his hand – with its trim nails, and fingers tufted with white hairs – to write her a note each morning. I don’t know what it was it wrote her, and I don’t know if her eyes were in good enough shape to read his hand’s writing clearly, but I think it wrote her nice things each morning because each night, she would kiss me with her mouth and wash me with water and salt and lemons. Now I, his foot – flexed and still, as he sits in the chair opposite her bed – look at the door to the room and look at her hair and then look at the watch lying upside down on the bedside table with the dial facing downwards and gently wiggle my toes every few seconds and think to myself that I could maybe help her somehow. That I could maybe push inside her and pass through her lower intestine to reach into her abdominal cavity, and that I, his foot, with my big toe, could stop up the hole in her liver caused by that sharp object during the accident. Maybe that way I can save her, I thought.
The foot takes two steps towards the female actor playing the liver.
The liver stops dancing gently.
The liver stops dancing gently.
[...]