“The best thing to do is get vaccinated.”
The second best thing to do is to lift “the curfew”.
The third best thing to do is to “get out of lockdown”.
Check to the above!
And this leaves us to the fourth best thing to do, which is to celebrate Greek Ohi Day.
So, after Melbourne and parts of Victoria ditched the night-time curfew and lockdown a week early at midnight on Thursday, 21 October, it’s time to “target” the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria (GOCMV), in the city, to tell them about my idea for “a live event” for Ohi Day, a week later, on Thursday 28 October.
The first thing I’ll do is “download the app” on Greek history and learn about the day Greece’s prime minister and former general, Ioannis Metaxas, rebuked Italy’s ultimatum to offer Italian troops free passage through the Greek-Albanian border, on 28 October 1940, bringing Greece into WWII.
“Spike” your “double donut day” takeaway. I will be going to the nearest “pop-up hub” serving coffee, ordering my “double-dose injection” of caffeine and resting my posterior on the “outdoor seating”. If the cafe has a fruit juice “presser”, I’ll order a glass of orange juice. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to receive my “first dose” of barista-made coffee for the day.
I’ll savour the taste. I’ll feel “free”, like a bird that’s been “locked down” for “three weeks”, “six weeks” or an even “higher number” of days than that and then set “free”.
“Freedom!”, I’ll “give a shout out.” But, if I find myself overwhelmed with excitement, I’ll take out my “ventilator” to help me breathe.
I’ll try to “mask” my euphoria as I step onto the tram “to cross the border” from the inner-city suburb of Richmond to the CBD.
READ MORE: Greek Orthodox Community of St George Brisbane Cultural Committee celebrates OHI Day
I’ll try my Myki pass that’s been “quarantined” in my purse since 5 August.
If it doesn’t work, I’ll remember that voice in my head: “Your vaccination is your ticket” and dig into my handbag for the “sterile single-use injecting needle” used to give me my “COVID vaccine” and “swipe” it across the Myki reader.
I won’t mind if “frustrated” people “jab” me in the back as I’ll look for it.
“ICU’ are being swashed too,” I’ll say and smile.
I’ll get off at the tram stop and walk to the GOCMV, at 168 Lonsdale St.
I will ask the staff member to help me with the City of Melbourne’s “LGA” “permit system” to stage my OXI Day celebrations in two days time, on Thursday 28 October.
I’ll show them my “road map” to remembering Greece’s “outbreak” of resistance to the Axis powers, on 28 October 1940. I’ll show them “the plan” to having “10 fully-vaccinated people” “gather outdoors”, in Lonsdale St’s Greek precinct to celebrate.
I will tell the committee my event will have three “stages”.
“Tier 1” entertainment will be the roving Volos “Voices for Vaccine” choir. Not all choir members will be from the Greek coastal port city in Thessaly, in central Greece, and not all the choir’s repertoire will be songs about “COVID-19”. The lead song, in fact, will have nothing to do with a “coronavirus” as it will be about the life of a young, hip, Greek woman who’s a “Moderna”
The “Tier 2” entertainment will include my neighbour Panagiotis “modelling from the Doherty Institute.”
The “Tier 3” entertainment will be a raffle with my two “furloughed worker” cousins drawing the winners. They’ve already told me they are looking forward to the “open-air” “social gathering” as they haven’t had anything better to do “since March last year”.
The first prize will be a trip to Greece, including a free holiday package and travel deal with “Delta” Air Lines.
READ MORE: The impact of Ohi Day on American public opinion
Second prize will be a copy of Thucydides, “History of the Peloponnesian War”, published by “AstraZeneca and Pfizer”, 460BC – 400BC.
Thucydides was an Athenian general in exile when he wrote the work about the war and the great plague of Athens that engulfed the city during it. He fell victim to the plague -thought to be typhus, typhoid or smallpox – recovered, and wrote about the disease’s symptoms. Thucydides noted how the epidemic revealed Athen’s problems. In the end, the plague changed the course of the Peloponnesian war and Greek and world history. So the work will offer the lucky raffle winner a chance to compare their “COVID-19” symptoms with Thucydides’s symptoms. He or she can also “pivot” and examine how Melbourne is fairing during the “pandemic” and see if there are any similarities with ancient Athens’s demise and ours.
The winner may experience a “positive result” from reading the ancient literary work or a “negative result” , or even a “false positive result.”
Either way, studying the classics will always ensure a “confirmed case” of deep thought: An “outbreak” of Greek philosophising is always a “mandate” for a good life.
I will tell the GOCMV that I also want a “pop-up” stand to place new Greek literature about the Patriots Pleading to go to Ellas, or “PPE”, party.
As Melbourne’s weather is so unpredictable, I’ll request a few tents and tarpaulins so there are no “exposure sites” in case of rain.
Of course, there will have to be a “gateway” for people to enter and exit, with an “opening up” on both sides of Lonsdale St’s Greek precinct.
The event is bound to be a success, I will tell the committee, with Greeks and philhellenes coming from a “5km radius”, “10km radius” and even “15km radium” of their home.
I’ll tell the committee to arrange for “authorised workers” to do a “deep cleaning” of Lonsdale St before the event so everything is fresh. For safety, I’ll suggest the GOCMV arrange to “isolate” around “70 per cent” and maybe “80 per cent” of the precinct for the event’s use.
“Maybe you can put ‘ring fencing’ around the street,” I’ll tell them. “Maybe even ‘a ring of steel.”
I’ll then “go home” and “stay home” to practice my speech.
“Testing, testing, testing,” I’ll say as I tap on the microphone.
Then, when the audio “settings are right”, I’ll be “good to go” to practice my Ohi Day liberation speech.
“My fellow Patriots Pleading to go to Ellas. My beloved ‘PPEs,” I’ll say.
“There are ‘thousands and thousands of appointments available’ at travel agents. ‘Walk up’ to them and ‘book your appointment'”.
“Only then can we lobby the Federal Government to ‘open up the borders’ and let us travel overseas to Greece.
“I’m sick of listening to “the CHO”.
“I want to go to CHIO.”
If you would like to help out at the Ohi Day celebrations, in Lonsdale St, on Thursday 28 October, contact mary@neoskosmos.com.au or telephone the Neos Kosmos office, on (03) 9482 4433. People leaving telephone messages are advised to provide the numbers of their “primary and secondary close contacts” in case we can’t locate you.