Spacious.
‘’I need more space," he said. I pushed the Negroni a little farther from him and slid the cigar box to the edge of the bar, creating what I believed was a respectable amount of space. "There," I said. "A few more square inches of freedom." He looked at me, almost offended. "You also need humor," I said. He stared at me. "I need space to feel creative. I feel crowded all the time. By obligations, expectations, messages, and opinions. By people asking how things are going befo
Stefanos Oungrinis
2 min read
A version of.
I hadn't seen her in a while, but the moment she walked in, something felt familiar. "I'll make you a Negroni," I said. "You've changed a lot," she said with the confidence of someone who had just walked in and somehow knew exactly what she'd missed. I reached for the Campari. "So have you." "No," she said. "Not really." She seemed different. Not older, not younger. Just more herself. She looked calm. The kind of calm that comes after the storm has taken everything it wanted
Stefanos Oungrinis
2 min read
The sunset.
It is early June. I've already been here a month. Long enough for the island to stop feeling like a destination and start feeling like a pace. Work is here too. This morning I had to go up to Chora. On the way, I stopped for a cigarette. The yellow church with the blue dome, this place deserves a pause. Started work at 4pm, it's just me serving myself again today. Even the boss seems to have adjusted. He currently holds the world record in Solitaire. Almost a week now. He loo
Stefanos Oungrinis
2 min read
London.
In the first few months, he drank the Negroni fast. Like medicine. Coat still on half the time. Phone face down next to the glass, vibrating every few minutes like somebody somewhere always needed something from him. He lived in London, but did not properly live. Survived there elegantly. He traveled every week. Back and forth constantly. London to somewhere else, then back again before the city had time to miss him. Still, somehow, he looked settled, which always fascinated
Stefanos Oungrinis
4 min read
A little more.
What do you want? I ask her with that aggressive approach that she always finds funny. “I want to feel more. And a Negroni,” she says. I will make the second one, and that should be enough. I built it slowly. Ice first. You hear it crack. Then gin, Campari, vermouth. Stir, orange peel, twist, drop. Slide it over. She takes a sip like she’s checking if it still works. “What do you want?” I ask. She doesn’t even look at me. “More.” “More what?” She moves her shoulders slightly.
Stefanos Oungrinis
5 min read
A kid for a minute.
“I just want to be a kid for a minute,” she said, already halfway into her second Negroni. That’s what everyone wants. We spend most of our lives running, growing, chasing success and covering responsibilities, paying for needs that half the time weren’t even ours to begin with. Everyone’s sprinting somewhere. But the strange thing is that when people meet each other, we suddenly act like none of that is happening. We put the masks back on — successful, stable, in control. Li
Stefanos Oungrinis
2 min read
Un po’ di mare e tutto passa.
He had been coming all summer, not every night, but enough that the bar slowly started to feel like it belonged to him too. Mario. Tall, late sixties. White linen shirt, always a little wrinkled — like he had slept in it, or like he simply didn’t care enough to iron it. Italian. Naples , he told me that the first night, a few years ago. And then again many nights after, like it mattered. “I live in Naples,” he would say, lifting his glass. As if Naples were not a place, but a
Stefanos Oungrinis
2 min read
