It was a summer morning at my front yard. A neighbor, a childhood friend of my farther, walks up with his head held low.
- Welcome!
- Good morning, my child. Where us your family?
- At the garden. Do you want me to get them?
- No, I’ll just here to rest for a minute, and I’ll wait.
- Fine, I’ll make us some coffee.
- Not for me. I don’t want any.

I turn around and look at him disturbed.

- How come?
- Oh, I’m just not in the mood.
- How about some spoon sweet? I have sour cherry. Fresh!
- Nah! I don’t feel like it.

Things look serious. I pull a chair out and sit beside him.

- Has something happened?
- Nah, what could have happened? I’m just not in the mood.
- Something must have happened, it doesn’t make sense.

He straightens his head, looks over at the sea and, all of a sudden, he cries out:

- What could have happened? I was watching a TV show, one of those that they talk all the time.
- So?
- So! I heard that Captain Gross is going to be staying in Greece for three more years…

He hits the cement floor with his walking stick, furious!

- Did you hear me? Three more years!

My head starts spinning circles, I feel dizzy, the old man is perfectly sane, so it must be me, I’m losing it, I’m missing out on vital information. Or, did they slip something into my wine last night, and I cannot think straight… Finally, I ask the question, looking at him with the blank stare of a 3-year-old with developmental problems.

- Who is Captain Gross?
- What? Don’t you know him? It’s the guy they have put in charge of guarding the money at the banks!

Complete blank. Darkness. Despair. And there, at the bottom of the well, a ray of light shines through!

- Capital controls! CAPITAL CONTROLS! Not captain gross!

The old man did not flinch:

- Ooooh, and I thought they called him that because he was making us go thinner and thinner…

Despina Simaki for ikariamag.gr