Father was leaving on a trip. We arrived at the station together so I could see him off. He boarded the train, hugely crowded, squeezed among passengers along the corridor looking for a place to stand. I followed him along the platform, watching him through the windows, frame by frame, I even felt that cinematic sorrow of separation. I didn’t know where he was headed; still, I had the feeling it would be for a long while, one of those partings that even if a reunion is to follow down the line, people are different, changed for good, and don’t even know themselves how much.

When the pot finally breaks, the one full of tenderness, stubbornness, guilt and grievances, these all pour again back into space. Space is soaked down to its foundation and the veneer of things is so eroded that the city is turned back into a village, loneliness into intimacy, the journey into repose and the dream into a recollection. When everything dries up once more, space is now changed for good.

Basil Karadais was born and grew up in Thessaloniki but has been living abroad for a number of years. His interests are writing, music and mathematics. This is his first book.