Perfect: A Mykonos Morning
by Eleni Stergiou
Version 1 of 2
Oh, God.
The lights had just flashed on. I tell you, my first reaction was to say, “Go away!” I heard someone call my name and I attempted to open my eyes, but they just weren't letting me. So, I slumped back onto my pillow and concluded that I was not getting up. No chance.
The first alarm went off. Then the second. Then the third. And before I knew it, “Eleni!"
There was no going back now.
I rolled onto the hard stone floor, smelling some odd shower gel that had leaked everywhere, and just before crashing down my fully-dressed sister and cousin caught me. Ugh. I checked the clock, expecting to see something along the lines of half-past twelve but no it was—I was filled with shock—five-thirty am.
And then I remembered that I myself had thought of the lovely idea to do a sunrise swim…the one thing Pinterest didn't tell me about this was that I had to wake up early in the morning. While all this was going through my head, my bed had magically been made and my tankini laid out for me. So, I threw it on, and off we trudged to the dark Mykonos beach.
I learned something new that day, before all the rowdy Greeks turned up at the beach. It was a different kind of zoo. One with real animals. Squawk squawk, burror pyrrrr. A fallen soldier stood inside a circle of cats—or rather, a fallen bird and the rest of the flock were fighting the cats. But it was a lost battle. The kittens were fed the three birds and as soon as they saw us, they skedaddled—leaving us with a quiet beach and a sparrow carcass. Lovely.
And then my sister, quiet as she is, shrieked. Loudly.
Hoping we hadn't woken anybody up, we slid into sunbeds, slathering sunscreen onto each other, and as the sky started getting brighter, we leaped into the water—the freezing water—but it was okay because we could scramble onto our massive alpaca floaty. We all laughed, hysterically.
Then what we feared worst…Yiannis, the caretaker of Costa Ilios. He was yelling, louder than my sister's shriek, red-faced, half-soaked and ranting in Greek. All we could do was stand there in silence. After he had finished, my cousin Sofia and I told him that we were sorry and we would be on our way. My cousin, the one with bright ideas and sunscreen-stained bikinis, had already formed a plan: we would be on our way—to the rockpools!
We climbed for half an hour, trying to find a good view and a comfortable place to sit, accidentally squashing some sea snails on the way, until we finally found the perfect place. We let the water tickle our chipped, gold, nail-polished toes, played some Tate McRae music, opened a pack of uno cards and looked up at the pink sky. A tiny orange crab pinched my toe, but that didn't matter because it was perfect.
Version 2 of 2
“Eleni.” My eyes didn't open.
“Eleeeni…” My eyes still didn't open. It was pitch-black outside, and it was midway through summer—there was no way I was getting up!
“Eleni!!”
After screaming—three times—I assumed whatever my sister Alexia had to say was of some importance. Well, usually the important thing I'd be woken up for would be, “Did you steal my pink cherry lip balm?” or “Make me cereal!” or…
"You’re late! We must go to the beach. Everyone else is ready!" This time, though, it was important. I’d slept right through my four alarms and my mother's attempt to wake me up; it makes sense though—it was five-thirty am, yes, five-thirty am! Sunrise was in half an hour and my cousin, my sister, and I were planning on a sunrise swim. That plan backfired.
I—still more asleep than not—trudged out of bed and almost face-planted to the hard stone floor. My begrudgingly perfect sister (eye roll) who was already completely dressed and ready to go looking like she got the 12 hours of sleep I didn't get, caught me just before I hit the floor.
Of course, my cousin was there and ready too. That's when I learnt that I am the worst person (in my family at least) at waking up. She also looked fresh as a daisy; I did not.
Dark circles were painted under my greying eyes (they are usually blue, but they turn grey when I haven't slept). I looked sick. Regardless, I put on my mint and baby pink tankini and was dragged to the beach. Ugh.
Squawk, squawk, purr, purr. Another new thing I learnt today: the usual family packed beach becomes a different type of zoo at night, one with real animals. Biscuit, Mittens, Whiskers and Curl, the wild cats that roamed around our Mykonos community, Costa llios, were purring at the top of their minuscule lungs and fighting like—well, wild cats (but the larger type) over a new catch: a small bird of a sort, maybe a sparrow.
Seagulls swept over our heads squawking like they were having a pleasant conversation. Even the seagulls had energy. Luckily, that didn't last long; as soon as our cousins arrived at the beach, they all went their own ways (Whiskers won the bird).
After sun screening ourselves like our mothers had told us too, we jumped into the clear sapphire-blue sea…which was not as nice as it sounds; at sunrise the sea is freezing rather than pleasant. We all let out a bit of a shriek (like the cats had when they realised that Whiskers won the bird). But my 9-year-old sister shrieked, “The zombies won the apocalypse!” They hadn’t really, but that’s what Yiannis said it sounded like. Of course there was someone who had no better use of time than to be awake by six to tell us off. Our perfect moment didn't happen. We were sent back home.
My fourteen-year-old cousin—the one with hazel eyes and thick brown hair that’s almost always in her face, wearing a white bikini that was slowly yellowing from her rough sunscreen job, the one with good ideas—knew exactly what to do. We ‘went home’.
All the way to the rockpools. We stopped there; we let our toes splash in the water. Splish, splish. “Ouch,” I whispered, as a tiny orange crab pinched my pink nail-polished toes. But that didn't ruin the moment. The cotton-candy clouds swirled into the pink-orange sky with the blistering yellow sun shining around us. The sea lapped lightly at the rocks, bringing new fish into the rockpools that tickled our toes. My sister softly giggled; we played a game of uno and it was perfect.
Editor’s Notes: This light-hearted piece explores how the tone of a memory can shift slightly through retelling. Although both versions linger on the same dawn adventure—alarms, cats, or cold water—they have minutely different emphases and humour. What emerges most clearly is how memory reshapes a chaotic few hours into a story: the irritation of waking early gradually becoming, in retrospect, a perfect morning.
A Brief Visit
By Natalie Chan
Sitting in the hospital waiting room, watch ticking and music blaring in my earbuds. The neon TV screen still in front of me, taunting me with the words “Average Waiting Time: 6.5 hours.”
Murmurs from the others around me were ricocheting off the beige-stained walls, making an echo chamber of their mingled voices. Ambulance sirens wailed in the back of my mind, throat dry and eyes shut. Only four hours left to go.
What was Forgotten:
One moment at the top of the stairs, the next on the floor at the bottom.
Head hung, lights flashing through my flickering eyes.
The air feels heavier somehow, stiflingly so.
Editor's Notes: Centered on the strange elasticity of time after an accident, this piece contrasts the slow, measured waiting of the hospital room with the abrupt, fragmented flashes of the fall itself. By narrowing in on these two temporal experiences, Natalie is able to show us how memory often preserves shock as flares of sensation rather than a single narrative.