You're stumbling home after a rough night out. The only thing keeping you awake is the struggle of finding your way back to your Airbnb. You could use your phone right now, but you're afraid you've broken it after slipping on the wet cobbles. Why did you have to take your work phone on holiday?
Left to your own devices, or what's left thereof, you notice the street lamps going out. For the first time in a long time, now that you think about it. Dawn, too, takes its sweet time, blanketing Thessaloniki's old town in a sleepy blue. Just in time for the blue hour, you think, and light a cigarette, feeling like fucking Vincent Van Gogh as you meander down the street.
And when you come upon a house with a blue door and rogue brushstrokes splattered somewhat impressionistically across the canvas-white wall, you can just imagine it – a solemn smile on Vincent's drunken face at the sight of such a curious constellation:
An ornate blue banister winding up a tightly coiled staircase to a rooftop terrace overhung with lush green foliage. Among the greenery, a blue rain barrel. Which reminds you of yesterday. When it all came pouring down. Where you come from, that barrel wouldn’t hold.
Next to the house, a parking lot. Or is it not? Bold handwritten letters on the wall spell 'PARKIN' but stand corrected at the last letter by the print of a crossed-out 'P'. There's more to it, but it's all Greek to you.
You feel the stare of a cat lounged on the staircase wall. "Good for you, fellow stray," you say out loud, only to wonder to yourself: Has it been there all along or appeared out of the blue? The cat seems to ask itself the same question.
A faint light comes on in the hallway. You can’t decide if someone’s up early or wary of you. Then again, you like the dash of contrast the light lends to your Van Gogh. If only you could paint it there and then: a warm awakening to a world that's blue through and through – as blue as your absinthe mind.
Thank God for camera phones. You're glad to find out that yours is intact. You hold your breath to frame the shot. You don't want to miss it. But the flash goes off and wipes out your canvas as the cigarette falls from your lips.
Turns out your photo sucks. You want to give it another shot, but the cat has vanished from the frame. Before you're jolted from your dizzying epiphany by the screeching of two cats wrestling down the cobbles. There you are! You feel the need to intervene, but they dart off as you approach.
Dead silence again. You look around, the cats nowhere to be found. Instead, you spot graffiti on a wall that reads: "Tourists go home". For a moment there, you have nowhere and everywhere to go. Then you remember that you’re flying home tomorrow. Well, today, to be exact. But of course, time lies in the eye of the beholder.
Right now, your head is pounding. Not to worry, today will be half-forgotten and tomorrow will be half a headache. And with your Vincent in vain and the whole neighbourhood stirred, you figure it's probably time to turn yourself in before someone's ear gets chopped off.
So, one last time, you indulge in it: the all-encompassing blueness. Only to linger a little longer in a painterly dream.