Vuori: The Theater at Noon

""  *Φοίνικας, they call it though palm trees wave only in the afternoon breezes by the Monastery and its coppices of Urginea Maritima. Voices are lost in the theater’s woods, whispers take over to play a melody to endure through eternity. Young souls perform on its time-stricken stage, and the dim lights of nearby Petroupoli strive to pierce Vuori’s undying floral sentinels.* ""

The Theater at Noon is the 9th story in The Vuori Chronicles, written during the month of July 2018, and marks the first of the last quartet of tales in the entire series. It is one of the most philosophical tales of them all, which begins as a description of the sunlit lower tops of Vuori close to the city of Athens, but veers off to a highly theoretical account of abstract notions including Time, Memory and the vanity of Life itself.

*Word Count*: 840

*Preceded By*: Vuori: The Warehouses

*Succeeded By*: Vuori: Clouds Above Korydallos

## Release

The story was written late June 2018, and is marked IX in The Vuori Chronicles.

## Plot

Absent a main plotline, the tale begins with a short description of Victim Hill, the first hill the Vuoriors follow to reach the Aqueduct Road to Pefkies and the First Antenna, and goes on to make a brief mention of The Gorge and the horse stables that used to be a mining site. Later, the descriptions become more lyrical as The Monastere is explored, with the constructions Reverent Gkremos has built and a mention to the olive tree he built in 2003. The serenity of the place is exalted, as told through the narrative elements of 'Noon', analyzed quite extensively in a previous tale on the Long Road, Vuori: Secrets on the Long Road.

As the story progresses, most lower top locations belonging to Segment D, *Theatro* are dealt with, including the very Foinikas Theater, a small theater amidst pine treetops and cypresses next to Petroupoli plains. The Railway Road, the narrow path that was followed by James Kingston and George Stroubis on the morrow of January 20, 2017 to return from the conquering of the Krymnaia Ypsi, also makes an appearance.

Kingston exploits the element of the theater stage to take the tale to a whole new philosophical dimension, as a good-hearted message to all those wonderers who strive to find answers in the galore of nature and its beauty; he concludes that the answers can never be found. The futility of life is a bit overemphasized and Kingston's frequent, albeit elusive references to the mystery of Time and its 'parodical' nature are overflowing.

In the end, the writer attributes any answer to the mysteries of life that could exist, similarly to Vuori: Secrets on the Long Road, to the wonders of nature itself, and not to any method of human intervention.

## Style

The tale is an ostensible example of the first type of storytelling, distanced and in 3rd person. It has a very philosophical nature, and takes upon the theme of 'Noon' that was explicitly dealt with in Vuori: Secrets on the Long Road. Through dreamy descriptions and rather sleepy-like vocabulary and odd patterns of wording, Kingston creates the 'faraway' effect of a distant yore, a hidden tale of Noon itself, and puts the reader in the ambiance of the Golden Hours shortly before Evenfall. Whether that was an intentional nod to the tale on the Long Road, or a revisiting of various natural themes, like the 'spring aura' known to flow in Vuori- explained in the tale as distant spindrift from Pireaus Sea- and the somnolent effect it has on travelers , is unknown.