Baptising

I woke up from the smell of the pines which expired the salty breath of the Libyan Sea. The light barely penetrated the walls of my cheap tent, it was  vapor, fresh and cool like the morning service on Good Friday. "What a castle", I thought, "what a palace for me, the prince!"
I put out my sleepy and unkepmt head and looked towards the sea: Zoe was playing in the waves - naked - a happy child! Without shame, as it looked like this land was untrodden for ages. Unapproachable by the wingless creatures. Upwards, the impregnable - almost vertical in the sky - plain, fighting thousands of climber trees attacking it. The attack was vain: the trees could not climb even half of the mountain and were falling, sliding down to the sea. No land on the horizon. How in the world did we get here?
"You're almost thirty and you're still a child", I shouted to her. "Shut up and swim", she answered with her sweet little voice that raised no objections. I did shut up and, riding a passing-by wave, reached the undersea mermaid's hug which absorbed me without any effort. We played all the fishy games we knew, sipped plenty of salty holy water until we got drunk, collected all the pebbles from the sea bed - loot of the historical fall we experienced - but then we threw them back into the sea because who wants to be called a conqueror? I had no idea how much time passed. But it must have been more than a light second because we were on the brink of turning into plankton, food for sea-weeds! "Me love her, she loves me in forgotten Atlantida" I thought and started laughing like a fool. And my little Atlantidian laughed too, though she knew not why. I used to be so lonely, but this little alchemist turned me into the sea lover!
We went out from this font which initiated us into the new religion only when, exhausted from so many childish games and hungry, we remembered the skaltsounia baked by our land-lady kira-Lenio. Poor things, they were so lonely there in the bag, waiting patiently to take part in our celebration. And they had every right for it! We accompanied them with home-made wine, the best thing to become sober from the salt of the holy sea water. Then we laid in the sun to get dry because we had to be back in the village before noon. Why? I tried very hard but could not recall.
Zoe, dressed again in her clothes and her proper ways, was murmuring in some odd language: something about luggage we had to collect, some ship leaving Souda exactly at seven o'clock, some stranger whose vacation was coming to an end. But what did we have to do with all those things? As we were heading back, the stairs dug out in the rock (who knows when and by whom!) reminded me there was no fortress without a backdoor!
The next morning - same time - Piraeus was embracing us, majestic and stinky. The ancient walls, irrefutable witnesses of the most proud decay, reminded of Mayakovsky poems. Were we sad? No! We have been already initiated in the new religion. No-one would dare now to tell us that paradise does not exist!
The ship travelling was called "Aptera".