Two Nights in Athens

Athens is a city known to have much nightlife. And while I’m sure it has wonderful bars and discotechques and fun—and not fun—things to do after ten o’clock, I can’t sleep. And when I can’t sleep I tend to write. And I want to write about two nights in Athens.

Night one: Wednesday, July 13, 2011. It’s hot. Incredibly hot, and the wind is blowing and the fan is on, but that combination seems to do nothing more than exacerbate the situation. I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep in Athens and there is a balcony adjacent to my room, I sit outside on the balcony.

            From the balcony I see no city. For in front of me is a colossal wall, of granite, and to both sides of me tower giant, granite rectangles, apartment buildings to be precise. These objects entrap me, in my chair, on my balcony. But when I stand and lean on the railing, I can see one star—directly in front of me—that seems unnaturally bright.

To me, the scene feels arabesque, almost, and I am reminded of Aladdin—yes, Aladdin, my favorite Disney movie. I am an actor, an extra in the “Arabian Nights” scene at the beginning of the animated film.

I can hear a family in a terrace below me eating dinner at 11 o’clock. They talk in a foreign tongue, their voices mixing with the other voices that ride on the wind, funneling together through the gaps between tall buildings, gaining power, ready to knock over the building, the city.

And when I look around again, the intricacies of these granite rectangles that surround me emerge. There are other balconies, there are television disks, a network of small and large wires; back windows, clotheslines, and different shades of darkness.
             Looking down, I feel the unavoidable sensation of weightlessness, fright; my body moves towards my throat.

This is the night, I don’t know why, that I begin to perceive my own tininess, something that for some reason I’ve never been fully cognizant of, not even when I know, roughly, the population of China, Japan, Boston, the size of Russia, Wyoming, Algeria. It is a humbling feeling.

Night two: Thursday, July 14, 2011. It’s cool. Because I have an air conditioner in my private suite, my office, my bedroom—and it works wonders. But it’s loud. Incredibly loud, and the streetlamp outside turns the curtains orange, the kind of orange of a city burst into flames. I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep in my flat in Athens, I write.
            There is a balcony adjacent to my room, but I won’t sit there, for it is right on the street and I fear eye contact with Greek strangers at night when I’m alone in my flat, with the air conditioner turned on, writing on my expensive computer.

            Over the quiet whirring of the air conditioner that I love so much, I can hear everything that goes on outside. There is a lot to hear.

            First, there are cars to hear. There are the cars in the distance, probably on the larger street parallel to my own, and there are the cars that pass close by the balcony, on my street. The cars in the distance are quieter, naturally, and more consistent in their noisemaking. But the cars that pass by the apartment are only intermittently noisemaking, which is nice, and not nice. They will pass by every so often with a loud rumbling/whooshing noise that fades in steadily and then out. Some cars are more irreverent in their noisemaking; they blast loud music, shake the floor, shake my mattress, my head, rattle my brain. Some honk. Others yell as they drive by. The motorcycles are the worst, but they pass quite quickly.

            Sometimes, rising above the night’s symphony, I hear more foreign voices speaking foreign tongues. The voices are shrill, almost startling, each time unexpected, and as the night goes on, and as this word document grows, the voices become less frequent. And the later it is, the louder these voices seem to become; the later-night crowd had too much to drink, I suppose.

And now I will take a swig of my water, and try to join my Greek comrades at rest, or unrest, and ignore the car alarm that just started going off, for tomorrow is a big day. Every day is a big day.