MORIA OR THE ASPHODEL FIELD

I don't know how long I've been walking aimlessly in this landscape of ruins. Remains of metal sheets, melted plastic materials and all sorts of rubble of lives crunch under my feet. Metal structures and a wooden door are still standing. Charred and starved tree trunks stand out of the soiled earth. Under a tarp marked with the UNHCR logo, I can see, buried, the bricks of a bread oven covered with soot. Inthe depths of my tight chest, my heart crumbles, soon forming a small pile of ashes at my feet. 

Barely two months ago the camp of Moria stretched out among the green hills of olive trees, a strange Tower of Babel made of bricks and mortar, teeming with hopes and misery. A few sparks at the bottom of a hut were enough to start a fire, which by some divine intervention, did not claim any victims among the still sleeping inhabitants. The gigantic blaze swept away everything, wiping out the meagre possessions of the thousands of people parked here. Up to twenty thousand women, men, and children, of more than seventy nationalities, remained in Moria for months, years, leading an existence devoid of prupose, condemned to eternal waiting, like the souls in the Field of Asphodel, the mythological hell of those who have committed neither crime, nor virtue. 

Over the continuous blowing of the wind that dissipates the acidic and carbonated smell, it seems as if I can still hear the hubbub of the crowd going about their business. I can smell the spices of a stewpot simmering in the air. Two women are chatting while hanging laundry while others are cleaning a tent and shaking out rugs. Men smoke while waiting in line at the barber shop. In the sky, colourful kites float a festive atmosphere. I hear a hoarse mewing at my feet, and suddenly the vision fades. I am no longer alone in the shadow kingdom, which seems to please an ash-grey cat rubbing itself against my jeans, purring. A few metres away, I perceive another movement in the backlight. It is a young woman crouching, digging into the ground with a stick and putting in a plastic box some items that the flames have spared. I approach the rubble of what must have been a school avoiding stepping on the burnt papers, pieces of pens, stuffed animals, debris from the blackboard... She raises her head and we stare at each other for a long time without saying anything. I decide to crouch down by her side and together, tacitly, we fill the box with whatever can still be useful. Slowly, the winter sun disappears behind a hill giving way to darkness. She stands up and grabs the rope precociously tied to her box, now full. She makes one last gesture at me before setting off, dragging her collecting behind her with a scraping sound that follows the rhythm of her steps. She is leaving the realm of the dead, the camp of Moria, hangar for the unwanted souls, banished to the far reaches of Europe. 

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Agathe Kalfas