The old man hauled himself out of bed, joints cracking and popping, his leg throbbing

from the wound he'd received so many decades before.

Stinging sweat dripped off his forehead into his left eye, the bad one, from which every

sight had been a watery blur since that fateful day.

The summer's evening air was stuffy inside the farmhouse, but it was cooler outside.

He hobbled at the door, taking a ceramic picture of wine with him, and planted himself

on a bench in the courtyard.

Once outside, under the bright stars and moon, the night had a pleasant and refreshing crispness.

He could hear the insects buzzing and chirping, the rustle of the olive trees and the slight

breeze, and the snores of the slaves and his family inside the house.

He took a long drink directly from the pillar.

He was middling wine, made from his own vines here on the farm, good enough for a tipple

in the privacy of his home, or for the drunken sailors down at the parais, Athens Harbor,

but not for guests of quality.

Then again, he'd been a drunken sailor once himself, and didn't much care for the tastes

of the rich, but appearances had to be kept up.

Another long drink followed, then another.

He knew he drank too much, his wife had told him many times, and so it is sons.

But he'd never slept well, not in these many decades since the wars.

He saw things in his sleep, things he wished he'd never seen, memories so repressed that

he sometimes wondered if they were real or only nightmares.

On a good day, he could pretend that they were only dreams, but in his heart, he knew

...