The Old Town of Rhodes, Greece is the oldest inhabited medieval town in Europe. After entering through one of the seven gates into the Byzantine walled city, it’s as if you’re exploring a disorienting labyrinth buzzing with frenzied activity.
With its mosques, minarets and a bazaar — the flavor is more Turkish, than Greek.
Textures of ancient, weathered brick walls, flaking yellow paint, and splashes of terracotta transport you across the centuries. The shopkeepers and café owners are aggressive. Persistent. Shouting. Negotiating. Confrontational. There’s something vaguely biblical about the place.
Turning a corner, into Ippokratous Square, there was a local young man acting odd in front of the Castellania fountain. Silent, but physically emphatic, he issued forth a troubled energy.
In this era, I tend to practice the undervalued art of giving anyone of questionably violent tendencies a wide berth. Still my attention was held by this character.
Gripping a phone, with earbuds in place, eyes closed, possessed by a melody heard only to him; he spun repeatedly, dizzying himself in a whirling dance. Like a Sufi dervish, unselfconscious.
Every thirty, or forty-five, seconds, he would struggle out of the spin into an aggressive forward march with hostility on his face and his arms flailing wildly — before returning to the hypnotic turning, once again.
Other local children, much smaller, would appear from time to time and taunt the whirling man, making sport of him, inciting another anger, only gently acted upon, before the incessant rotating dance resumed.
At one point, a small pack of loose dogs entered the square and crowded around the man, breaking his repetition and hijacking his attention.
A different energy surfaced from the young man as the dogs hurried for his awareness. He knelt to their level and acted as one of the pack. Burying his hands and face among their matted fur, there was a new peace to his demeanor.
This short-lived peace quickly passed. Unexpectedly, he expressed annoyance towards the dogs and pushed them away, quickly regaining his footing and returning to his uncommon whirl…