An interesting week. It's snowing in Athens. The archbishop died. Though I’m not supposed to say that. Archbishops don’t die. They simply… sleep. Death is left for us sinful mortals, with no hope for resurrection and all that comes with it.

What can I say? Thousands of people have already paid their respect to…the corpse. I’m probably not supposed to say that, either. Four days of mourning for this miserable country, already crumbling under the weight of innumerable scandals- or maybe it was just one big scandal, involving sex, money, dvds, the government, corrupted journalists, immoral politicians and a couple of attempted suicides. The perfect Hollywood recipe, in other words.

The archbishop was our only hope. But now, alas, he’s…sleeping, and who will pray for our polluted souls? I look around me, overwhelmed by a mix of nausea, shock and the need to laugh so much they’ll put me on Hell Express immediately. No return tickets. Very scary stuff.

I’m sorry, I’ll shut up now. How inappropriate to mess with people’s beliefs. Let them consume their fatty food and pathetic entertainment. Let them find salvation in “truths” constructed by manipulative elites, joy in the pain of others- as seen on TV.

Am I beginning to sound like Marx? Have I already committed the error of assuming I am somehow better than everyone else? Well, I’m not. I, too, judge and condemn and categorize, seeking to stand out and yet still belong, all too aware that even difference is pointless unless someone, somewhere can somehow appreciate it.

Forgive me for talking about books all the time, but they're such an integral part of my existence. My drug of choice; the fuel that keeps me going when everything else falls apart; my comfort and solace and only true company, ever since I learned to read. You may think I'm some kind of freak. I'll take it as a compliment.

At some point of my life I actually stopped reading, a fact that now sounds hard to believe, even to me. I guess I had no time for books, or rather, no energy at all. Other thoughts kept me occupied. And, imagine, I avoided all solitary activities, anything I could not share with a certain someone.

This was soon restored back to normal, of course. Like before, I now long for these moments of superficial isolation and deep companionship; foreign worlds of the mind and their strange, yet mostly welcoming, inhabitants.

When a novel ends, I get withdrawal symptoms. A situation negotiated best by long but good fantasy series- though, sadly, even these have an end. If left without a book for a while, my defenses are temporarily shattered. I'm exposed to reality's vicious attacks, with no shelter, nothing to go home to in the evenings.

Forced to move on, I get my self a new specimen. Initially I hesitate to enter its alien universe, overwhelmed by waves of nostalgia for the familiar setting I've left behind. I take it in my hands, look at it suspiciously. But by the time it's over, it will probably feel like home.

I don't know if what we're experiencing is the blessing of a second chance to fulfilment, or just another collective illusion. Does it matter? As long as we keep reality at bay, as long as we share this pleasant delusion, dilemmas should never shatter our delicate fable, the intricately painted glass through which we see the world and what we used to call our love.

Now words are heavier, they often seem to linger in a realm between conception and utterance; we mistrust confessions of undying devotion. We let it all dissolve, I guess, into droplets of a thick, bittersweet liquid encompassing our feelings, our needs, eternity and all existence. Thus, here we stand, confused and betrayed, with our childhood dreams forsaken, stolen.

Yet still I scan your eyes for traces of innocence, still I sometimes smell your skin and breathe in serenity. You’ll never read this, you were not meant to ever have the whole of me, nor I the whole of you; others have stumbled upon parts of me you’ll never understand. But you were here, from the start, and that’s what makes all the difference. I should have known.

Ours was not a love story, ours was a butterfly’s lament, a tragedy of fatal explosions and fragmented rainbows, the treacherous chemistry connecting minds and hearts and bodies, before turning everything to ash. It was what happens when aggression meets poetry, when a magnet seduces a compass and the North remains lost forever, notions of direction suddenly rendered obsolete…

Sometimes I truly and intensely miss student life, and it didn't even end that long ago. I don’t miss exams, nor essays, except from a few really thought-provoking ones. Most lectures would simply put me to sleep, seminars varied like the seasons (before climate change, in any case), and as for surreal conversations with teachers and co-students…I’ve had my share, but, in general,my social skills betrayed me, particularly early in the morning.

What of stoned mornings, drunken nights, casual sex and wild parties? These, I think, are interests you grow out of, rather than leave behind. Plus, none of it has to end when student life does. Athens is filled with newly-opened bars and cafes, in turn filled with slightly confused 30somethings, desperately clinging to some vague idea of alcohol-fueled fun, too immature to have families, too poor to engage in more sophisticated activities, too old to simply stay at home and play videogames all day.

So, as you grow older, drunken nights may lose their spontaneity, but at least they’re more under control. Stoned mornings become rarer, which is why you can actually appreciate them. Wild parties…my impression is they still occur somewhere, though better ask someone who’s into them. I never was. Now, casual sex might increase or decrease in frequency, but in terms of quality... it’s just one of the things that get better with time.

Then what, you may ask, do I miss? Nothing too obvious.
I miss the endless free time, often feeling stressed by approaching deadlines, yet nonetheless surprisingly calm. I miss working whenever I wanted to, planning long trips without caring about skipping a few classes. Above all, I miss my quiet existence, my melancholic sunsets, my creative hours of solitude, my ever-deepening thoughts, which sometimes flirted with paranoia. I miss my inner self, now almost out of reach, this still and guarded place at the edge of my mind.
I miss home.

Losing touch. I can feel it. You have, at last, become a ghost for real. But quitting would be like admitting defeat. Why make an admission when no one is listening?

Sometimes I still catch myself fabricating excuses for you. Maybe you’re busy, got things on your mind, found yourself in a game and have to follow the rules. What did I do to deserve this silence? I did nothing, which was more than enough. Only the dead deserve silence. We just aren’t ready.

Tomorrow. Will be a new day. Another ordinary day. No monsters, no heroes, no miracles. Who needs them? When night descends, you fantasize of tangerine skies. Keep your fingers crossed. We’ve met before, I think. This isn’t a cry for attention. This is eternity personified. And don’t you know that progress moves in circles?

Transparency. Misunderstood and praised and broken. To be comprehended is to be superficial, complexity necessitates a certain remoteness, depth should always remain out of reach. So what if you want to pour your soul on a page, turn your longings into questions, your awe into exclamation marks, your sorrow into verses, your pain into long sentences and mercifully empty words?

You may take the risk, but don’t expect them to embrace or forgive you for breaching the invisible line. Protect yourself by keeping your confessions hidden. Better, still, to preserve them as they are. Fleeting. Unspoken. Pure.

No lessons in morality, today. Feel free to feed your expectations to the dogs before leaving the building.

One of the few measures I'd take, if I were god, would be to replace STDs with...STAs (Sexually Transmitted Abilities). Instead of annoying infections, the only thing you'd get from your sexual partners (mental disorders aside) would be a portion of their skills.

Consider this: we'd all have free access to knowledge, we would all get something in return; a most useful souvenir for even the least worthwhile of occasions. A one-night stand with a spanish teacher, and you'd manage the basics in spanish. After dating a pianist for a few months, you'd be able to play the piano quite well. A long relationship with a physicist would turn you into a quantum physics expert. You might want to avoid fucking a proctologist, though.

Now, you may ask, why make it so hard? Why not transmit information via a a kiss, or a safe and simple handshake? Well, that would be far too easy. The point was to get you to invest a part of you, however small, into the exchange; to attempt establishing a connection, no matter how insubstantial. Wouldn't that make procreation so much more promising?(remember, no STDs either)

Well, as for the con's...Overpopulation for one, not to mention the danger of having too much knowledge in the wrong hands. Imagine an even more crowded world filled by over-confident individuals, possessing bits and pieces of all-too-effortlessly acquired wisdom.
Perhaps, nature did the right thing, after all.

It is a game.
There is nothing childish about it, but the players would look like kids to any external observer- if only there was one. They themselves feel very mature, experienced and rational.

It is a game.
Like all games, it is governed by rules. As with all rules, there are exceptions; as with all exceptions, each player believes himself to be among them. Some try to cheat; others think they are following orders, even though nobody has ever seen their coach. A few try to cooperate, making grandiose plans; the majority struggle to stay in the game by focusing on personal challenges, or simply running around what they take for the ball.

It is a game.
There are players who want to impress their fans. In absence of those, they turn to their fellow team-members, instead. Eventually, they find out that everyone is simply too busy minding his or her own position- unless, of course, they’re startled by something extremely unusual, which may distract their attention for a moment or two.

It is a game.
Some refuse to accept it for what it is. They forget the basic principle: games are not to be taken seriously. By the time it is over for them, they may or may not have reconsidered their opinions. For one thing is certain: sooner or later it will be over, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

It is not a game.
No one wins.