Island Life

Paradise at Paradajz
We sat round the old, wooden table.Three were 'locals' - from this island, or others nearby - and four were new friends from Finland. Way past midnight, the thick summer darkness sparkled as you gazed into the star-filled sky.The air smelled of the sea, sage and lavender. The ancient square on the island of Vis was paved with the finest Dalmatian stone and surrounded by houses with Venetian crests and one lonely tower.

'So wait? She's going home? But who'll close the tavern when she leaves?' Karri was worried when the owner of the 'Paradajz' café said her goodnights.

'Well, we are when we're done. We'll put the table and gramophone in the tower. No one steals here, and we'll pay the bill tomorrow,' I replied, rolling another cigarette and dealing the cards.

'Aww, look at this! Listen, this is Kris Kristofferson!' said Stefan, putting on another record with one hand and stuffing himself full of anchovies and goats cheese with the other. We all began humming along. 'So, what's the secret?' he asked, barely breathing.

'The secret? Well, here we say that a fish has to swim three times: in the sea, in olive oil, and then in wine. And the old neighboring town of Komizha is famous for fishing...and pirating. It's a Mediterranean Tortuga,' I explained, shrugging my shoulders and taking another sip of the Plavac wine. It was making me warm from the inside.
'To go for a swim?' I thought. The 20 meters to the sea seemed far, especially in my state, but I could distinctly hear the waves calling....

'No, no. I don't mean that. What's the secret to this life?' Stefan said.

'Lack of electricity and abundance of youth?' Diego joked.

'I don't know,' I mumbled. 'The population is small, and nature dictates the course of things. The islands are kind of the poster children for the paradigm of the Mediterranean as it once was.' I was thinking about the tourist posters with those words and how the last of the monk seals still lived in these coves and on these beaches. 'Natural treasures,' they teach us in school.

While everyone else seemed lulled to sleep by the prosecco and wine, and the warm seaborne wind that danced around our candles, Stefan mused, 'You're so lucky.'
I leaned back, touching the rough stone wall behind me - still warm from the day's sun. As Kris stopped singing, revealing the sound of crickets chirping on the nearby cypress tree, I reflected, 'Funny. It took complete strangers to teach me something that I should already know.'