Tens of thousands of years ago there lived a prehistoric fierce hunter named Zha who was a leading member of a group of nomads. In the winters he used to be the first to enter the unexplored caves where the bears came to spend the winter. It is said that after spotting them, he would stick his hands into their fur and caress them while chanting shamanic prayers. Then, using his multi-bladed spear, he would deliver an instantaneous blow of unparalleled precision to the top of their heads. The instant and painless death made the bears seem still alive. Much later, only the goddess Artemis would surpass him in fame. Thanks to Zha and his spear, the congregation secured not inconsiderable amounts of food and clothing. At the same time, the occupied cave provided them with a safe haven during the most arduous time of the year. In fact, when they happened to be near rivers, lakes and springs, Zha's group ceased to lead a monotonous life, and slowly thrived and evolved. The possessions that surrounded them ensured that they had the necessary time to feel, or at least glimpse, the human side of their existence.
A descendant of Zha is thought to be the Mesopotamian or perhaps Egyptian named Zanra the Barleyhead (Kritharokephalus). It is said that he was addicted to that new thick drink derived from barley and wheat - that is, beer - and that although it was necessary to use straw to avoid ingesting its residue, Zanra the Barleyhead would thrust his head into the vessels and turn them upside down, swallowing grains and husks of cereal with excessive ease and pleasure. Sources claim that during the period when he was engaged in the braided basket trade, he travelled from Mesopotamia to Egypt and tasted for the first time the crystallised recipe for beer, to which berries, spices and honey had been added. Shortly afterwards, it is rumoured that he was involved in the construction of the pyramids where payment was made in various quantities of Egypt's national drink. In the last years of his life he tried to tame this uncontrollable passion somewhat and limited himself to relatively small quantities of reddish-brown beer. He also added so-called 'bapirs' to his diet in an attempt to deceive himself. That is, double-baked loaves of yeast bread. In his old age he managed to return to the highlands of Mesopotamia where he lived poor and isolated. But one morning he emerged from his hut and saw what would radically change the few years of life he had left. Countless goats, wild boars and cattle had surrounded his hut and were browsing the dense vegetation that had covered the area since the ice melted. Zanra tamed and tended them and in a short time managed to transform the area into one of the most prosperous in Mesopotamia. As for the end of his life, information is confusing. According to the prevailing theory, Zanra the Barleyhead breathed his last at dawn on the day after the festive ceremony in honour of the storm god Marduk. Some claimed that he drowned in the beer froth that spewed from his mouth, nose and ears, while others, more suspicious, claimed that he was poisoned by those who coveted his property. All agree, however, that he died with a sardonic smile formed on his lips.
A descendant of Zanra of the Barleyhead was Zanreus the Achaean, who came from the depths of the East and participated in the Trojan War. He was one of those sent by Nestor to spy on Troy, after the death of Achilles, to finally put an end to the infamous " judgment of arms ". According to the accounts, he was a nocturnal man and therefore the best suited for this operation. So he led the spy group under the Skye gates of the Ilium castle, crossing - on a moonless and cloudy night - the entire war zone in order to eavesdrop on the besieged opponents. Though he suspected that the admiration of the careless Troopers for the person of Odysseus was the work of the gods, he nevertheless carried the information back to the camp as an objective fact, without forming an opinion. Besides, he was at heart irreligious. He believed that if there were indeed gods, all they did was to clarify and illuminate our innermost will, not to direct us as mindless, unmanly beings. Zanreus was totally and consciously immoral. He believed neither in the morality of fate, nor in the morality of the gods, nor even in the morality born of symbiosis itself. Yet he caught up at the last moment and saved his beloved sheep from the suicidal Ajax's mania.
The next descendant to appear on the pages of history was Zaneris the Athenian. He was a citizen of the Athenian democracy and sources say that he had been elected once as a member of parliament and at least twice as a court official. It is even reported that he voted against the decision to condemn Socrates. He later became a staunch supporter of Alcibiades, believing that he alone had inspired the next stage in the evolution of democracy, which was a universal existence, a cosmopolis that would transcend the small-scale city-state and embrace all similar civilisations, with an emphasis on freedom and education. Today we call it a nation. And 'nation' is recognized, quite simply, by the nostalgia and embarrassment we feel when we are outside it. What is civilization? It is the word the Greeks made up to denote their common - of the city - confrontation with the meaning of life and death. No happiness or prosperity can free us from existential impermanence. That is what Tragedies taught us," he used to say.
In the sources of Alexander the Great times, we learn about some Zamvlichos who was probably a descendant of a Zaneris. It appears that he was a man of letters and a student of Theocritus, the creator of bucolic poetry, but himself did not proceed with the art of eidyllia. Since at that time, there was no legislation for intellectual property and it was not considered depreciating to cut off other people’s texts and incorporate them to your texts, Zamvlichos indulged in the composition of excellent cοmpilations. As you can imagine, most historians that used this technique, were unskilled, Zamvlichos though, was the greatest artisan among the artless artisans. Ηe merged elements with such mastery that it looked like he was describing facts that he lived himself. He admitted that he would shout out the dialogues while he was re-writing them, and that his texts welled up not only emotions but also documented conclusions.
The most likely known descendant of Zaniris the Athenian is a Smyrnaean who lived in the late Byzantine period with the name Zanonas or Zanon. He participated in the safety of Smyrna and for a short period of time he was as captain and coordinator of armatolism of the broader area there. Moreover, out of some judicial documents we draw the conclusion that he practised legislative work that he settled disputes among captains of Chios island. Ιn one of his orations from the proceedings fo the public affairs , he mentions that in his belief “it doesn’t come from anywhere as evident, that work is a good implicit to the human condition, that is a value in itself, nor that the form and work relations that have thrived until now, and especially those that thrive in anthropocentrically late Hesperia, constitute an oppressive but necessary evil for the harmony of people within a social group.”
Somewhere here, reliable sources are lost. It is said that there was a Zano, inhabitant of Moldovlahia, with characteristics of a Mongolian. However, he was an adorer of the greek spirit, and he was intending to relocate to the newly established Greek State. As soon as he was informed about the disgraceful, cowardly assasination of the governor Kapodistrias, he cried the whole night and the next morning he packed all his things and he loaded them on a mule. The whole village had gathered in front of his house. Some to wave goodbye , and others to dissuade him. “The Greek state was born to die” he said before vanishing towards the eastern horizon.
Let’s talk about the talking head now. My name is Nino Zano. When I was born there was a starry, and at the same time full moon night. It was summer but the next day it snowed. The very first thing I asked when I learned how to speak , it was how it is possible that the sun rises out of the same spot, since I had seen him diving into the sea the previous day, fading at the exact opposite side. They told me that during the whole night he is sailing, sleeping on a bed made by Hephaestus. “And then how does the chariot and its horses return without the charioteer?”was the next question and I still haven’t received an answer. When I grew up, I learned that I have no motherland but I am not a cosmopolitan either. I was a complex of untamed wildcat and sparrow in a cage. When I grew up even more, and I realised what this all about, Ι opted for hermitism. Through the others, we lose or we earn ourselves. As for me, I mostly lost. Anyway, I still believe that whoever has great company, steals greatness. I thought letting myself go into lethargic inactivity. Ι had no house and no real home. I was absolutely surrendered to wear and tear of time. As soon as I felt the need to put a roof over my fathead, it was already too hard. I was bulding, placing the stones one by one, into the forest, and I was crying with nerves and compliance. The temporal, futile and ephemeral, I had apotheosised them and that was exactly what I loathed in this search of comfort. (It was my first major defeat). Having a home, made me logical. Besides, instincts as a driving force, were always dangerous. I didn’t desire anything more that I woudn’t desire for the whole world anymore. How to get back though? How to live among others suddenly? Was it worth it, or I would need to undergo an unbearable inner compromise? Three days away from my brick house lays the “foggy mountain”. From the window of the eastern side I could see its bare top. The legends of the forest described a supercentenarian old man standing, unruffled, on the top of the mountain, having an answer for every question that tortured pure souls like mine. It sufficed to arrive there in person and address the question to him. The only guidance that was granted to me in advance was to detect the most round large stone to the mountain foothills and push it up to the top. It would protect me from monster attacks that lived by the mountain slopes. I took the initiative to get some chocolate with me, because in my experience I knew that after intense climbing, eating some counts as one of the most supreme pleasures possible for a human being to experience. When I stepped my foot on the root of the mountain, I saw the fog dissipating and the whole way unfolded to the horizon as if goddess Athena had interfered, like the time she banished the gloom from Ithaca, to convince the suspicious Odysseus that he indeed was back home. The creatures, despite having supernatural and -most of them- malformed build, didn’t scare me much. I was supprised though from the presence of -according to mythology- sea monsters . In low altitude, I could see Ouroboros snake quenching his thirst draining the riverbed. Α little bit further up, I saw Lernaea Hydra and Echidna to shake their forked tongues at me. Behind them there was a coppice Centaurs emerged from, Cerberus and Minotauruses. On the tops of the trees, Sylphs of different kinds were dancing, while some of them flew high and screamed to the top’s direction deafeningly. All of a sudden, Valkyries and Trolls appeared , while the top was shadowed from the immense wings of hypogriffins, of dragons , Harpies and Sphinxes. Through the shadows , I could see the red eyes of Kujata who sighed and snorted from his countless mouths and nostrils. No need to expatiate here, about my infamous ascent. Only Xenophon could render my ascent and unequal confrontations validly and vividly. The truth is that the rolling stone I used in kind of a shield ended up degrading and shrinking into a wad inside my palm. Ι was attacked with such a degree of ferocity. Until I could arrive and stand before the old man, this little, round and compressed mass was shattered into pieces as I nervously clasped it until I bled. After i positioned myself in front of him, I came to realise that no one had informed me for any kind of protocol. On my side, at first, I didn’t address him because I was trying to catch my breath. Then, I didn’t talk to him because I ate my chocolate and “when we eat we don’t speak”. In the end I chose to not speak because of stubborness. “Is anybody here?” the old man asked and then I realised that I had to at least have suspected that. Like in every fairytale I had read, the wise old man was blind. In fact, he had to be blind. As if someone that is able to see, would be impossible to reach the magnitude of wisdom. As if the environment, the phenomenal world would disorient him from the real, the ideal, the non-perishable, the timeless. Ha! Now that I’m thinking about it, it all makes sense. “Yes, I am here, the Zano!” I said as if I knew him for a long time. Τhen, I heard the old man addressing me just as naturally, as he would do if he resumed a past conversation: “If you want to live among other people, to bear this choice, you are in need of art. To be an artist though, you have to live among them but at the same time without them. This is why an artist’s life is absurd. Besides that, you also need the guidance of the Muse. Only through her you will serve art. Only through her you will fathom that you are nothing special, you are only the instrument. A conduit that opens up the passage to the others, that are nothing special either. And through this passage you can all together discover what is that thing that unites you, and you may find confort in one another. That is all.” Afterwards, he gave me some tips in order to detect the rare “Νymphs herb”. It is said that it grows only in the soil in which Dryades Nymphs shedded their tears, and that whoever finds it, after chewing it well and swallowing it, his skin produces a particular smell that attracts the goddess Muse. Also, that if the aspiring artist manages to cope with this unprecedented force with prudence, the scent will accompany him for life. According to the information, there was only one “Nymphs herb” already grown at that particular moment and that its shape resembled the calligraphic letter “G” of the latin alphabet. He told me that in order for me to know its exact location, I had to visit the city of Tarantas that was now deserted after a horrific factory accident that wiped out the largest part of the population. Very few managed to flee, while the only ones that remained even then as inhabitants of that ruined city were some incurably injured and deformed men, that chose this incosolable life with stoicism and without fatalism. “Those will be sure to guide you” the old man said to me and before saying goodbye he gave away a gas mask to me as well as a snowboard to downhill “the Foggy mountain”.
Arriving a few days later in the haunted city of Tarantas, I watched the smog radiating from the chimneys and mingling with the hydrous clouds. I put on my gas-mask and I walked towards the city center. The first man I met was monocular, he had a crippled face and his right arm was missing down from the elbow. Instead of this truncated limb he had an iron arm ending in a hook. Αfter we introduced ourselves, I asked him about the air-balloons that were floating in the cloudy sky. He told me that some prosperous residents attempted to flee, bypassing the traffic jam that was created a few moments after the sirens of emergency resonated. Unfortunately, none of them could make it and they died probably because of asphyxia, up there in the sky. The difference in the density of the atmosphere, granted airballoons the creepy and macabre property to hover in the sky, unballasted and loaded with the carcasses of those people. He looked like sighing when I asked him about the rarity and the properties of the herb. Not because he didn’t understand what I was referring to. He just considered that it was impossible for a plant that was born into such a toxicity, under pollutant and poisoned conditions, not only to not kill its consumer, but to provide him with divine inspiration instead. I said goodbye to my mutated friend, shaking his iron hand and I headed to the forest. Α group of degenerate butterflies led me among the suffocatingly wrapped by lichens tree trunks, until I found myself in front of an enormous white mushroom, that covered with its cap the coveted herb. I took off the gas-mask, I cut the herb and chewed it maniacally. For e second, I feared that everything was a lie. Was the herb poisonous? But then I thought that after all, the body is a treasure that needs to be wasted like time so I tought to myself: let me “yeild” to any temptation , and I swallowed it.