It started when I was a teenager. A sudden fainting spell would appear out of nowhere, irrespective of time, place or occasion. For the first few seconds it would feel like a normal lightheadedness. But then, my eyesight would go. Everything quickly faded to black as if someone was sliding a dimmer switch. That’s when … Continue reading 3 Seconds Away From Collapse
As I was growing up, no one ever warned me that if I walk too close to the edge of the curb on a busy road, each passing car ends up stealing away a little bit of my soul. Although there had been plenty of rumours over the years about the link between microwaves, radio … Continue reading About Cars, Consciousness and CO2
When I was just a few years old, our family went on our first proper summer vacation. I remember being quite confused about the concept of a rented villa. This was, after all, my first time ever living in a new “home”. My mother tried to explain: “this is not a real home, we have … Continue reading Borrowed Planet
The ocean’s emerald waters are always a welcome relief for tired eyes. They are a cure for the abuse that the retina has suffered during the day, inflicted through repeated exposure to the same light wavelengths: the cheerful but blinding whites, the brutally monotonous hay yellows, and the dusty, dull browns of the height of … Continue reading Blue Rainbow
However thick its walls, a beach house will always be transparent to the sounds of the sea. They tend to disregard obvious entry points like windows and cracks, preferring to infiltrate directly through the wall, roof, even the floor. Faraway crashing waves can be the most mysterious: by the time they reach the house, they … Continue reading Beach House
Earth was born into poverty. A scorched ball of molten rock and fumes, upon its conception it resembled the inside of an industrial steel furnace. As it cooled down, it struggled to make something out of itself. It was trying to find its own identity in the universe of other balls of fire out there, … Continue reading The Story of Water
Have you ever visited the beach at night? I remember warm summer nights when we went for night swims with my cousins. We wanted to scare ourselves. The sand was cold and soft on our feet, as if the beach had died and turned into a lifeless corpse. The pebbles were the only objects that … Continue reading Night Swim
Many billions of years ago, somewhere in the vast darkness of space, there was a lonely dying star. As the furnace that had kept it bright for millions of years began to run out of fuel, the star started burning parts of itself just to keep warm. And as it did, it’s outer layers began … Continue reading The Story Of Carbon
Before my parents explained to me human reproduction, and way before I became a biologist, I used to think that babies came from the sea. Nature would just “make” them whenever it felt that it was ready to produce more humans. Couples who wanted to have a baby would go down to the beach together, … Continue reading Return To Chaos
George Tsakraklides 