The cold breath of death

...In a while the battle will begin. It's as if my hands don't touch things, my senses don't understand the world. I think I am in a stupor. I came so far riding a white horse with no eyes, no senses. The soul is full of angels and on the cheek the traces of a slap. Where is God? And is man like God or like a star fallen in the mud? Black is my path, the Lord does not care about me. Only the cold breath of death touches me. I can feel it on my face, on my body, on my soul. Yet I'm not afraid of death. What scares me is that killing the other man, I kill the man within myself...

(Stelios Xefloudas, OI ANTHROPOI TOU MYTHOU, in: Chatzipatera-Phafaliou, Martyries 1940-1941, Athens, Kedros, 1982, p. 175)