Crete

Smell the country like speed and topside sage and wind and swallowed dragonflies on a motorcycle off the Old Road about fifteen minutes out of Agios Niklaos and headed northwest with no helmet, taking the long way to get there, scooting slow past little villages curled up in pink potassium canyons and ya-yas in black veils with their moustache-men in ash-stained shirts all sweat grey and greasy with spilt Mythos. Roadside tavernas and breedless dogs everywhere and dusty Datsuns, Fiats, Peugeots; dust on the storefronts and dust on the motionless locals, Egyptian sandstorm dust from the distance softening the edges of far-off mountains, pixelizing all the straight lines. It’s Assos smoke and homemade wine, beeping Puntos never pass me in the fierce sunshine or your flicked cigarettes, tire tracks, out of the mountains and over the sea with a head full of Homer and hard sixes, all the rhythms that conjure up gods.

Every three kilometers there’s a little pale-blue shack with a plain wooden cross and what looks like a drive-thru window. The window is made of dirty glass, and behind the glass and dried tears and smeared fingertips there’s always an unopened bag of Lay’s tzatziki-flavored potato chips and a bottle of purified water. Apparently when a traveler finally gives in or goes over the locals build them a little pale-blue shack and leave a bottle of purified water with some food for the ghost or the soul.

But every three kilometers, every downhill spiral past laughing mountain goats and falling rocks and every unexpected un-signed spin or curve there’s a few more shacks full of ghosts drinking water and eating chips, watching sunsets and crashing cars through last week’s off-course sandstorm.
Realization being: the world of men belongs to the dead and I am simply moving through here on my motorcycle at my own comfortable speed, surrounded by--on, in--the mountains and the sea, a gracious guest. All around me nothing but water and rocks and half-buried houses. Sinking lights, blinking glass, scrap-metal mopeds and ten thousand thirsty ghosts.