February 2018 blog entry. 'Balcony with a view'

I’m very excited about my blog entries for the next few months. A local artist and friend, Theo Michael, is putting a book together of his paintings, and to accompany each painting there will be a short story. There are several contributors for the stories, including Theo himself and of course myself. So for the next several months, I will be putting up one of Theo’s paintings and MY relevant short story. You can see Theo’s work and more stories under his blog section, ‘Every wall needs a story’, here:
 www.artbytheomichael.com
 
This month’s entry is called: ‘Balcony with a view’. I hope you enjoy both the painting and the story. Your comments are welcome.
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Balcony with a view

As we stand here on the balcony, I am thinking what a breath taking view this is. I am so happy that they have renovated this beautiful Hotel. A lot of buildings were lost and badly damaged during the short war on this amazing Mediterranean island.  It was a disastrous thing to happen here as the island depended heavily on the financial income from the tourists. This Hotel had always been popular, not just for its location, but when you asked for a room with a view, you got that and more.
Some good did come of the war, I met Victor! Let me tell you about it, it is a proper love story, a romance with all the trimmings.
I had been working at this very Hotel as a receptionist when the war broke out. Of course when the first bombs were dropped, the tourists all went home and the Hotels became deserted, but they were put to good use. A couple were commandeered and used for accommodation and headquarters for the soldiers, and this one as a makeshift Hospital for the wounded. That’s when I first met Victor. No he wasn’t a wounded soldier like most war time romances in films would have you believe, no he was a newspaper reporter who was covering the war for an English newspaper. I had become a general dogs’ body running around fetching this and fetching that for the Doctors. On the day Victor and I met, I was trying to sweep the Hotel lobby, when he walked in via the big glass sliding doors at the entrance of the Hotel. Our eyes locked immediately! My heart was skipping every other beat, and my broom was sweeping on the same spot over and over again. He was, as they say, tall, dark and handsome. He wore a dark suit topped with a hat which had a White band around it, the one he is wearing now. Between the band and the hat was a small ticket which read “PRESS”.
“Hi!” he said in a deep, dark, Velvety voice.
“Er, hi”, I managed to splutter.
The weeks passed quickly as did the time we would snatch from our duties to be together. Our love was effortless, just as it is now.
This room with this balcony was allocated to Victor and I as we were now thought of as a couple, which we certainly are. My own apartment had been destroyed by a bomb, and Victor coming from London, had no particular place to stay, so it was perfect. After our days duties we would eventually meet in room 406, our room, this room, a room with a balcony with a view.
Allow me to tell you dear reader, about a very special night. I had finished my days work and I had come up to this room. Victor was already home. He had laid the table for two with candles in the middle and a single Red Rose in a small vase, and I could smell food. He is so romantic. He came out of the bedroom and he had a Red dress hanging over his arm, this Red dress that I’m wearing now.
“Here, put this on,” he said handing me the dress.
I did and it fits perfectly, don’t you think? Victor had remembered that it was my birthday. We wined and dined and then held each other as we stood on the balcony just looking out over the ocean and thinking what a wonderful world this is. Of course it all looked very different then, most buildings were in ruins, and there were craters in the road, not like now....
My last real memory as we stood on our balcony was hearing a high pitched whistling noise that got louder and louder until it finally stopped when it hit our balcony and us.
That was 75 years ago, but we still come once a year to visit our balcony with a view!
 
END
Chris Christodoulou
13/10/2017

​Till next month, be well.