This Passing World
Journey From a Greek Prison
by
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I watch a Greek prisoner carefully roll hashish into a cigarette, and I’m thinking about the letter that came yesterday. The letter came from Melina Foster. In her letter Melina writes that I'm in a bad cycle. (I suspected that already.) She says the peak will run from October twelfth through November. Yesterday was October twelfth. She writes: "Haole told me that he looked in on you the day of your trial, with the thought of insuring that your vibrations be high. He said that he saw around you eight bright lights and that his attempts to influence you were unsuccessful because of all the energy around you already in force...." Haole, who seems to understand these things, says that my higher self is putting my lower or egoic self through a purification process—a trial by fire. Like frying an egg while it's still in the shell, I suppose. As I'm pondering this new information Nick rushes in and tells me to gather up my things, that I'm leaving tonight. "Orders from the D. A.," he says. They're transferring me to the prison on Corfu. Damn, tomorrow Angelina’s suppose to bring my clothes, shoes, sleeping bag. Nick makes out a telegram to Angelina while I’m stuffing my things into a brown paper sack. It's evening lock-up time, and, through the haste and confusion of the prison, I hear the Beatles singing over the loud-speaker in the yard. They're singing "Let it be, O let it be...." I smile to myself. Surely, this song at this precise moment must be a divine omen!
As I go out the main door Nikos the cook slips me two loaves of fresh-baked bread and a big hunk of cheese. A light rain begins to fall. Two guards whisk me away in the back of an old transport truck that keeps breaking down. They take me to a crowded, filthy little police station in Athens, known as "Met-a-go-go." That night two Spanish sailors share their blankets with me. It's their first time on a ship to Greece, the sailors tell me. While ashore they made friends with a young Greek. "The friendliest people in the world, you know," they say. The three men went back to the ship. They shared a little food, a little whiskey. The sailors offered the Greek a smoke. "It was the natural thing to do!" the sailors wail. "We've always smoked with the people. We've never had any trouble with the police. Until this country!" Clothes, money, everything's back on the ship. "Dhembirazi, dhembirazi!" the police say. "Never mind! It doesn't matter!"
Next morning, the police take me to a large holding station at Piraeus. I have to wait here for three days before the next transfer truck leaves for Corfu. I glance around. Jeez, what a pigsty.
"Well, whatta y'know, a foreigner!"
I hear loud, friendly guffaws. I turn around and see two grinning Americans. They introduce themselves as Jim and Steve. Jim points to their cell and invites me to stash my things. They're in a large cell with a young French guy named Francois and a Belgian named Jacques. They soon tell me the latest news: "Oregon has legalized grass!" (As it turns out, this news, like most prison gossip, like the death of God, is more than slightly exaggerated.) But the REALLY BIG NEWS is that the U. S. Government is paying the Greek Government five dollars a day for every day a foreigner's in jail convicted on a drug charge. (The amount of money may vary but every foreigner I meet in jail swears this rumor is true. It seems the information originally came from a German TV program.)
Jim, Steve, Francois and Jacques have been in jail for seven months, along with two underage Arab twin brothers, and an Israeli guy, whom I later meet. They've come to Piraeus for trial. I double with laughter as I listen to these guys squabble and scheme among themselves, rearrange and shift the blame, to come up with one plausible story to tell the court. They were all staying in the same hotel in Athens, which is how they first met. The Arab twins had smuggled a kilo of hashish across the border into Greece. They hid the hashish inside their hollowed-out boot soles. Jim sold some of the hashish to an informer. The next day everyone got busted. Francois doesn't smoke or deal but the police found him sleeping in the Israeli's bed.
Formats Book Details THIS PASSING WORLD tells the story of a light being, much like you and me, who incarnates on this planet but quickly gets tangled up in the web of lies and illusions and dust of this world. Through his own willful actions he finds himself in prison in a strange country, along with drug smugglers, murderers, rapists, and theives. He must then undertake the transformative journey of remembering who he is (before he was born), the reasons for coming here, and the true source of his being. Through memories, dreams, and reflections, David Pendarus begins to take a relentless look at his past and his passionate and often painful romantic entanglements—a journey, like Odysseus, full of twists & turns—in order to answer one burning question: Who am I?
Don Cauble grew up in the South. He’s the author of several books of poetry. This Passing World is his first novel. He’s been called a genius; others just shake their heads. He lives in
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