A NOVEL

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

David McConnell Copyright © 2024

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

 

ITNA PRESS

Los Angeles, CA

www.itnapress.com

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

 

Cover design & image courtesy of Chris Stoddard Copyright © 2024

 

David McConnell. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 979-8-9882829-5-2

 

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024935614

 

The author would like to thank the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre of Rhodes for their generous support during a key phase of this novel’s development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Darrell Brownlow Crawford

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOCRATES: And which gods will you swear by?

Because, to begin with, ‘gods’ aren’t a coin current with us.

STREPSIADES: Then what do you swear by?

By the iron money of Byzantium?

 

—ARISTOPHANES

 

 

 

 

 

. . . people are under the misapprehension that

the brain is situated in the head.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea.

 

—GOGOL

 

 

 

 

 

PART ONE