Costas Komborozos

Leonidas Costas Komborozos

When the boy rose to face the darkness, he glimpsed phobos, intangible fear, peering back at him. The fear looked at him teasingly, infuriatingly, on the verge of withdrawing itself into its own silent rage. The boy gazed fiercely into it. He saw the ghost of a wave in the sea of murk. He felt that it was the silhouette of his own disembodied dread making its untimely departure. Deep inside, the boy had already become a man. He felt the fear wither away, and then waited for the silence to end. His eyes remained rigidly still on a sight devoid of sound. All was blackness before him. Then he saw the frightened eyes of a girl. He saw her fully materialize before him in mere seconds. His hand instantly reached for hers, as if by doing it would destroy the factory of fear, the place in which all fears exist. This place was woven into every element of bodily displeasure abiding beneath a layer of skin, ever desirous of encroaching upon the intangible realm of spiritual courage. The boy and the girl knew that they had to walk through the dark to cross the dreaded doorway of adolescence. But they knew that they had already done so, for they recognized what the darkness was. Phobos. Fear of death. War. These were as familiar to them as the faces that fed the earliest of their life's memories. Leonidas glanced at Gorgo, who held on to his now-deepening gaze. With their hands entwined, they walked through the darkness.