Annie Hamilton

In Greece, the cigarettes are cheap.

They filled an entire suitcase with little yellow boxes of George Corellius and Sons.

They say we can smoke as many as we want.

They're proud.

The cigarettes are so cheap.

The boys are so proud.

We laugh.

Zoe laughs like Tinkerbell, the air whistling between the gaps in her teeth.

She's definitely not a dog.

I know we're high up, and I know our lives would be ruined if one of the boys fell, but tall plants are growing on the edge of the rooftop, and I can't see the cobblestones anymore.

If I could see that little cobblestone street in the boy's little smart car, it would be easier to imagine them falling.

It would be easier to remember that I'm in Paris.

It would be easier to laugh like Zoe, like Tinkerbell, like a real girl, a girl who is not a dog.

I can't see the Pantheon or the observatory or the park.

I can see only the boys and their tan stomachs and the scrapes they got from falling off the moped.

We could be anywhere.

We could be back in New York or near my house in L.A.

or at some Airbnb in Berlin.

I'd like to go to Berlin to dance with the boys at Burgain, to eat knafeh with Zoe, to see the Reichstag or whatever, but the boys don't want to go.

Athens is the New Berlin.