Like every night. He was there. The first meeting of the evening. It must have been shortly after sunset. He encountered her moments after opening his eyes. It was her or almost her, nearly her. Very thin. Standing, she would be tall. A long dress. Green. Sometimes younger, sometimes not, although she often seemed to be the same. Sitting casually in the armchair, opposite the bed. Sometimes smoking, sometimes not. She seemed to be smiling; not always. She rarely looked him in the eyes, usually appearing to be preoccupied with some detail on the floor or the ceiling or at a point to the right or left of the pillow. She never spoke to him. Neither did he. And then she would disappear into the corner of his rug, like a Sergei Nizinski. Seconds later, he would forget the details.
And then, usually, a curse; and he would jump out of bed. He had decided. He decided. It would be a night like any other. For others. Not for himself. Not for Alkiviadis Pikrós. Because he would change. That night, he promised his reflection in the mirror. Every night, he promised a clearly unshaven and invariably tired face that he would change his pattern. That for him, it would be a night different from the previous ones. Which had been the same for months. Sleep during the day. And it was natural, since he stayed awake at night in bed, observing the endless movement of the fan on the ceiling or resting his elbows on the kitchen table or on the slats of his desk, staring at the wall opposite him, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and drinking endless coffees, or walking alone, mechanically and permanently—every night—stopping only, sometimes, for a little while, to jot down a thought in his small Moleskine, always during the same fifty-minute route: Papatzoni-Balanou-Miniati-Markou Mousourou-Hymittou-Ilioupoleos-Proto Nektarion-Trivoniannou-Sorvolou-Papatzoni. In Mets.