“WELCOME TO HELL,” greets my eyes, as I look up over my dresser cum desk.
The words are written in big, bold, black letters. Staring at me from in between the words, is a devilish-looking red skull. It carries a challenging look, saying, “Go on son, let me see what you’ve got.”
The scarf is a deep, saturated yellow and black. On the left hand side, a fist is curled tightly with the exception of the middle finger, which stands erect. Besides it are the words “Yellow Power.” To the right is the insignia of the football club AEK Athens. Curling the border of the scarf are barbed wires.
In direct contrast to the intimidating and hostile AEK Athens scarf, are prayer flags that lie hoisted on the wall above my bed. “Om, Mani, Padme, Hum,.”
One symbolizes compassion, the other hatred.
I chuckle to myself thinking through the irony of it all.
In so many ways, these two objects represent exactly who I am, and I could write on about my conflicting nature, and the duality of what it means to be a human being, that how these objects don’t just symbolize me, but symbolize us all. We are, after all, one being in an infinite universe that carries endless possibilities where all our dreams can come true.
But no, this essay isn't about the universe, about how love trumps hate, and how there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel, how in the end, we will all go back to being dust and molecules and that there is a very real possibility that nothing we do means anything at all.
No, this is a story about my friend Alex.
Girogos Alexandros Dimellas, was one of the first people I met in college.
Undergrad in cold, windy Boston. 2012.
Alex was one of the first people whom I called a friend. He remains one of the few from my undergraduate days that has stayed a friend.
On his worst days, Alex was the most fascinating fellow I knew, and on his best days it felt like he would transcend to another dimension.
He had studied philosophy. He claimed to be an anarchist. He wasn’t tall, only 175 cm, and had nothing more than a pre-pubescent moustache.
But he had with him sheer force of will.
He always dressed one way.
Black faded t-shirt, black hooded jacket, wrapped up in a black leather jacket. Black “East Pak” backpack. Black jeans, black steel-toed boots to go with it.
His left ear was pierced – ring not a stud – and he had his hair tied into a bun. His voice was deep and soft. Every time he addressed someone, they were forced to lean in to listen to him. A pungent, cigarette-like smell mixed with body odour would often ooze from him, but either he was oblivious to it, or he didn’t care. His mind was always racing, looking for the next scam. It was like he was a puppeteer, and he wanted everyone around him to dance to his tune.
If his name didn’t give it away already, Alex is Greek.
He was proud to be Greek, and like so many other Greeks I’ve met since, he fit the cultural stereotype. Deeply philosophical, borderline misogynistic, loyal to a fault.
With Alex, I often never knew where I stood.
It took me three and half years and fortuitous encounter in Barcelona before I realized that my instincts about Alex were right.
The voice in my head that used to say, “Alex isn't cool enough for you to be hanging out with him,” was going to be squashed.
One cool, winter night in Barcelona in 2015, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I picked up and heard that familiar voice, almost a whisper,
“What’s up? Where are you? I’m coming to meet you.”
I hadn’t from heard from Alex since he had taken a break from university. He had decided to wander around Europe like the vagabond that he was, and I had figured I would lose touch with him seeing as he had no social media. Alex might as well have been a ghost.
And like the apparition he was, he seemed to appear out of nowhere inside the gloomy, underground bar I was drinking in that night in 2015.
Having just completed my term abroad in London, I was on holiday in Barcelona. It was off season, and I had lucked out with cheap flight tickets and stay.
I was with a girl that night Alex called. She was someone I thought I was madly in love with, someone I had had plans on clumsily seducing that night.
But Alex ruined my plans, showing up out of nowhere and hijacking my evening.
“Let’s get out of here. The beer is shit,” he said to me.
We walked out and up La Rambla, the famous, long pedestrian street in central Barcelona. The air was crisp, and fresh, the street empty despite its reputation as a party center and tourist attraction.
Alex led the way, not to another bar, but a convenience store, that stood on the corner of the street. It stood out as ugly and out of place. The bars in La Rambla were small, dimly lit, secretive; the store was large, bright under the white light, a real sight for sore eyes.
Alex picked up four cartons of cheap sangria, some snacks and a pack of cigarettes. He asked me to pay for it.
He then suggested we go back to my hostel, and drink the night away.
Frustrated but happy, I led the way back. The girl was with us, confused by this strange turn of events, but curious nevertheless.
The three of us sat on the second floor patio at the hostel, and Alex told us tales of his travels through Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia. He didn’t have two coins to rub together to make a third, and had thought of a scam that led to a fist fight with a Serbian drug-dealer (his steel-toed boots had come in handy). He had managed to “blag“ (British slang meaning “rob”) his way through to the south of Spain, ending up in Valencia where he found himself amongst the ultras – the most hardcore, passionate supporters in football – of CF Valencia. He had traded a scarf with one of them.
AEK Athens for CF Valencia.
As the night rolled on, countless cigarettes were smoked, even more stories were told, I remember feeling draped up in this strange aura of mystery that only Alex could create.
Then, before he left, Alex stood up. He reached into his backpack and pulled out this yellow and black cloth that was wrapped up in a little ball. He unfurled it and told me this was the scarf the ultras of his beloved AEK Athens carried with them to the matches.
He handed it to me, telling me he carried an extra one to give to me. And just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.
It wasn’t just chance that Alex stumbled into that bar that night. He knew I was going to be here, even in the midst of his anarchist, strangely philosophical, hero’s journey through Europe, Alex had thought of me.
When I moved to Vancouver, I had left the scarf behind. It wasn’t until December 2020, when I was browsing through the closet in my parents’ house did I see this scarf lying neatly folded underneath some skiing gloves.
In that moment I remembered Alex, I felt filled with nostalgia at the thought of that random night sharing that cloudy Barcelona sky with Alex. It had been a different time, and I had been a different person.
I’m still not sure if the stories he had told me were true; with Alex you could never know for certain.
The scarf now lies pinned to the wall above me. It’s there for Alex, a philosopher, and a friend, someone I feel privileged to know.