I hadn’t planned on counting the stairs in Athens. The habit had faded years ago, a childhood compulsion I’d outgrown along with my fear of cracks in sidewalks and the need to organize my bookshelf by spine color. But jetlag has its way of resurrecting old patterns.
It was nearly midnight when I gave up on sleep, the unfamiliar ceiling of my rented apartment in Thiseio offering no relief from my restless mind. Athens sprawled beyond my window—a jumble of lights cascading down from the illuminated Acropolis. The late September air carried the lingering warmth of summer, along with the distant sounds of late diners and the occasional motorbike. I dressed and stepped out into narrow streets that felt both ancient and alive. My feet seemed to know where to go better than my conscious mind, drawing me toward the dark mass of Filopappou Hill rising opposite the Acropolis. The neighborhood thinned as I approached, cafés giving way to silent apartments, then to the open parkland surrounding the hill.
The first set of stone steps appeared almost unexpectedly—worn marble gleaming faintly in the moonlight, leading upward into the darkness. Without thinking, I began to count.
“One, two, three…” My whispered numbers created a rhythm for my ascent. I’d counted steps since childhood—a habit my mother attributed to an early obsession with Sesame Street and my father viewed as early evidence of my mathematical mind. By graduate school, I’d mostly suppressed the urge, except during particularly stressful periods when the ordered simplicity of ascending numbers provided comfort.
“…twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one…”
I paused, momentarily confused. The staircase didn’t look that long—perhaps fifteen or twenty steps at most. Yet I’d counted thirty-one and was only about halfway up. I glanced back down, trying to reconcile what I saw with what I’d experienced.
Shaking my head, I continued upward. “Thirty-two, thirty-three…”
A slight dizziness washed over me at step forty-seven, the final step before the path leveled out. I gripped the stone balustrade, steadying myself as Athens spread out before me—a constellation of lights framing the illuminated Acropolis. For a moment, the modern city seemed to flicker, like a television with poor reception. In that instant, I saw something else overlaid upon the present: fewer lights, different structures, movement along what appeared to be ancient roads.
Then it was gone, and I was simply a jet-lagged mathematician standing on a hill in the middle of the night, trying to make sense of why I’d counted forty-seven steps on a staircase that couldn’t possibly contain that many.
I turned to look back down. From above, I could clearly see the entire flight—no more than twenty steps, surely. Had I counted wrong? Double-counted some steps? The possibility bothered me more than it should have.
I descended, counting again. “One, two, three…” Each step solid and singular under my feet. “…nineteen, twenty.” I reached the bottom having counted exactly twenty steps down.
Twenty steps down. Forty-seven steps up.
Sleep finally came in the early morning hours, my dreams filled with endless staircases and the sensation of climbing toward something just beyond my understanding. When I woke the following afternoon, groggy and disoriented, I convinced myself that fatigue had simply caused me to miscount. A minor perceptual hiccup, nothing more.
But the next day, as I approached the marble steps leading up to the Propylaea—the monumental gateway to the Acropolis—I couldn’t resist the experiment. The guidebook in my hand stated clearly: 23 steps. I closed the book, took a breath, and began to climb.
“One, two, three…”
I felt the first shift around step fifteen—a subtle disorientation, as if I’d momentarily lost track of how far I’d climbed. The crowds of tourists around me continued their ascent, oblivious. A young couple took selfies three steps above me. A tour guide explained something in German to an attentive group. None of them seemed affected by what I was experiencing.
“…twenty-three, twenty-four…”
According to my guidebook, I should have reached the top. But the steps continued upward before me, identical to those I’d already climbed, worn smooth by millions of visitors over centuries. I glanced at a nearby informational sign as I passed it: “The Propylaea entrance consists of 23 marble steps…”
“…thirty-six, thirty-seven…”
A peculiar clarity began to settle over me, my jetlag seeming to evaporate with each additional step. The quality of light changed subtly—still the same bright Athenian sunshine, but somehow deeper, revealing textures in the marble I hadn’t noticed before. The chattering of tourists receded, not because they’d grown quiet, but because my focus had narrowed to the simple act of counting.
“…forty-six, forty-seven.”
I reached the top, slightly breathless, though the climb shouldn’t have winded me. Forty-seven steps again. The same number as last night on Filopappou Hill, despite these being entirely different staircases. My training in mathematics made coincidences suspect—patterns demanded investigation.
I turned to a nearby guard in his light blue uniform. “Excuse me, how many steps are there to climb up here?”
He looked at me with the patient expression of someone who answers the same questions hundreds of times daily. “Twenty-three steps, sir.”
Twenty-three visible steps. Forty-seven counted steps. The disparity nagged at me like an unsolved equation.
I spent the remainder of that day visiting the Acropolis, my mind only half-engaged with the magnificent ruins around me. My thoughts kept returning to those stairs. On my way down, I counted again: twenty-three steps descending, exactly as expected.
Descending through the winding streets of Anafiotika, I took a different route back to my apartment. A gray-and-white cat with unusual amber eyes watched me from atop a low wall. As I passed, it tilted its head slightly, studying me with a gaze that felt oddly knowing, as if it too could perceive the mathematical anomalies I was chasing.
“You see them too, don’t you?” I murmured.
The cat blinked slowly—once, twice, three times—the perfect start of a Fibonacci sequence. Then it stood, stretched with deliberate grace, and disappeared down an impossibly narrow alley between houses. I paused, half-tempted to follow, but the alley seemed to bend in ways that defied conventional geometry. Another Athenian mystery for another day.
That night, in my apartment, I created a simple spreadsheet. Two columns: “Expected Steps” and “Counted Steps.” Two data points weren’t enough to establish a pattern, but they hinted at one:
- Filopappou night stairs: ~20 expected, 47 counted
- Propylaea entrance: 23 expected, 47 counted
The following morning, I set out with purpose, my tourist itinerary reconfigured around Athens’ staircases. My first destination was the Monument of Filopappou itself. According to my research, fifteen steps led to the marble monument dedicated to Philopappos, the exiled prince of Commagene. I approached them deliberately, notebook in hand.
“One, two, three…”
The pattern continued. Fifteen visible steps expanded to thirty-four counted steps. With each ascent, that same clarity descended upon me, a sharpened awareness that felt both foreign and familiar. At step twenty-one—a step that shouldn’t have existed—I experienced a flash of something impossible: men in ancient clothing, working on the monument, speaking in a Greek far different from the modern language I heard around me. The vision lasted only a second, but it left me shaken.
By midday, I had tested five different staircases:
- Filopappou Monument: 15 expected, 34 counted
- Theater of Dionysus: 16 expected, 42 counted
- Anafiotika alleyway steps: 12 expected, 31 counted
- Aeropagus Hill: 16 expected, 42 counted
- Roman Agora entrance: 8 expected, 21 counted
The numbers bothered me. They weren’t random—I could feel a pattern hovering just beyond my comprehension. I sat at a café in Monastiraki Square, staring at my notebook while my coffee cooled untouched. The mathematical part of my brain began breaking down the ratios:
47/20 = 2.35
47/23 = 2.04
34/15 = 2.27
42/16 = 2.63
31/12 = 2.58
42/16 = 2.63
21/08 = 2.63
Close to two-and-a-half times more steps when counting upward. Not exactly consistent, but the variation seemed meaningful rather than random. I needed more data, and perhaps, another perspective.
“You’re counting the steps, aren’t you?”
I looked up, startled. An elderly man stood beside my table, leaning on a wooden cane. He wore a rumpled linen suit despite the warmth, and wire-rimmed glasses perched on a prominent nose. His English carried the musical lilt of a Greek accent.
“I—yes. How did you know?”
His smile revealed a row of too-perfect dentures. “Because you have the look. I recognize it.” Without waiting for an invitation, he pulled out the chair opposite mine and sat down with the careful movements of someone managing arthritic joints. “I am Professor Demetrios Alexopoulos, retired from the Mathematics Department at the University of Athens. And you are another counter.”
I introduced myself, explaining my position at the small liberal arts college back home, and my sabbatical research on mathematical patterns in ancient architecture. I hesitated before mentioning the step-counting discrepancy, uncertain how a stranger might react to such an irrational observation.
He saved me the trouble. “And you’ve noticed that the steps are not what they appear, yes? That counting reveals what seeing conceals?”
The coffee cup nearly slipped from my hand. “You’ve experienced this too?”
Professor Alexopoulos signaled to the waiter before answering. “Athens has many secrets. Some are written in stone and history books. Others exist in the spaces between perception and reality.” He leaned forward. “The ancient Greeks understood mathematics not merely as calculation, but as the fundamental nature of existence itself.”
“But how can physical steps—”
“Who said anything about ‘physical’?” His eyes twinkled behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “The Pythagoreans had a concept they called ‘arithmos’—they believed numbers weren’t just abstract tools for counting, but had actual physical existence. They saw mathematics as the bridge between the visible world and true reality.”
The waiter arrived with a Greek coffee for the professor and a fresh one for me, though I couldn’t recall him ordering either. “When you reach certain numbers during your counting,” he continued, “do you experience anything… unusual?”
I hesitated, then described the momentary disorientation and the fleeting visions. Rather than dismissing my account, he nodded with increasing enthusiasm. “Yes, exactly! Theodoros Metochites touched on this in his ‘Stoicheiosis astronomike.’ Most scholars read it as mere astronomical calculations, but some of us have always seen something deeper in his work—hints that he understood how mathematical relationships could reveal pathways between the visible world and underlying reality.”
“Professor, these visions—”
“Are you familiar with Plato’s concept of ‘anamnesis’?” He stirred his coffee with deliberate precision. “The idea that learning is actually remembering—knowledge from a previous existence. Perhaps what you’re counting are not the shadow steps we all see, but remembering their true mathematical nature, just as Plato suggested in his cave allegory.”
I considered his words as I sipped my coffee. As a mathematician, I dealt in abstractions daily—imaginary numbers, higher dimensions, theoretical constructs that couldn’t be directly observed yet yielded concrete results when properly applied. But this was something else entirely. “That doesn’t explain why it only happens going up, never down,” I pointed out.
“The Pythagoreans saw ascension as movement toward pure mathematical truth. We climb toward understanding, toward revelation. Descent is merely a return to the known.” He tapped my notebook. “May I?”
I slid it across the table. He studied my figures, nodding occasionally, then produced a pen from his breast pocket and wrote something at the bottom of the page. When he returned the notebook, I found a sequence of numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…
“The Fibonacci sequence,” I said.
“Compare your counted steps to these numbers.”
I examined my data again, and felt a chill of recognition. Many of my counts aligned with Fibonacci numbers, or fell just short of them:
- 34 counted at Filopappou Monument (exactly the 9th Fibonacci number)
- 42 counted at Theater of Dionysus (between 34 and 55)
- 31 counted at Anafiotika (between 21 and 34)
- 47 counted at Propylaea (between 34 and 55)
“This can’t be coincidence,” I murmured.
“The Fibonacci sequence appears throughout nature—in the spirals of shells, the arrangement of leaves, the branching of trees. The ancient Greeks recognized these patterns as evidence of mathematical order underlying reality.” He leaned forward. “Have you tested the Dionysiou Areopagitou Street yet? The long pedestrian way below the Acropolis?”
“No, I’ve walked it, but haven’t counted.”
“You should. Start from the Propylaea side, count all changes in elevation—not just formal staircases, but every time the street steps up, even slightly.”
I promised I would, curiosity now fully ignited. As we parted, he pressed a slim volume into my hands—a collection of mathematical papers in Greek, with his name on the cover.
“My contact information is inside. Document everything, especially any visions that accompany specific numbers. We should compare notes.”
That evening, I walked to Dionysiou Areopagitou Street as the setting sun bathed the Acropolis in golden light. The wide pedestrian avenue curved around the ancient citadel, occasionally breaking its gentle slope with short flights of stairs or subtle changes in elevation. I began at the southeastern end, near the Propylaea.
“One, two, three…”
I counted each change in level, no matter how slight. Tourists flowed around me as I moved deliberately, focusing entirely on the process of counting. At step twenty-one, a familiar disorientation washed over me, accompanied by a brief glimpse of the street as it might have appeared centuries ago—unpaved, lined with different structures.
“…eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one…”
The count grew higher than any previous staircase, yet I remained focused, almost trancelike in my concentration. The modern world began to flicker more frequently now, like a television signal increasingly interrupted by another broadcast. At step 144—the 12th Fibonacci number—the present vanished completely for several heartbeats.
I stood on the same street, but transformed. Men in togas and women in flowing chitons moved around me. Vendors sold goods from wooden stalls. Voices spoke ancient Greek, yet somehow I understood fragments of conversations about politics, philosophy, daily concerns. A child ran past, chasing a wooden hoop. The Acropolis stood above, its buildings intact and painted in colors now lost to time.
“…one hundred fifty-seven, one hundred fifty-eight…”
The vision faded, the modern world reasserting itself. I continued counting, waiting for the next threshold, wondering what larger Fibonacci number I might reach. My count eventually reached 160 when I arrived at the far end of the street—a number disappointingly short of 233, the next number in the sequence.
But something about 160 nagged at me. It wasn’t a Fibonacci number, yet it felt significant. I pulled out my notebook and calculated the ratio:
160 ÷ (actual elevation changes, perhaps 60-70 based on my observation) ≈ 2.5
There was that approximate ratio again. And then it struck me—160 is remarkably close to π × 50.
I sat on a nearby bench, my mind racing with possibilities. Was there a connection to the classic problem of squaring the circle? To the transcendental nature of π? The Fibonacci sequence approached the golden ratio as it extended—another irrational number with profound mathematical significance.
That night, I dreamed of endless staircases that curved into perfect logarithmic spirals. I climbed them step by step, each number opening new visions: scholars debating in the ancient Agora, astronomers charting celestial movements, mathematicians scratching geometric proofs into sand. I woke before dawn, my mind buzzing with a theory beginning to take shape.
Over the next three days, I tested every significant staircase I could find in central Athens. I documented each count meticulously, noting any visions or sensations that accompanied specific numbers. Patterns emerged:
- Steps always counted higher going up, never down
- Ratios between visible and counted steps consistently orbited transcendental numbers (π, e, φ)
- Visions occurred most frequently at or near Fibonacci numbers
- The content of visions correlated with location (philosophical discussions near the Agora, religious ceremonies near temples, artistic performances near theaters)
On the fourth morning, Professor Alexopoulos called. He’d reviewed my notes, which I’d emailed the previous evening, and invited me to meet him at the University archives. “There’s something you should see,” he said, his voice carrying an urgency that hadn’t been present during our café meeting.
The archives occupied the basement of a nondescript university building north of the Acropolis. The professor waited outside, fidgeting with his cane.
“You’ve documented the phenomenon more thoroughly than anyone since Metochites,” he said by way of greeting. “But you’re not the first to notice the mathematical anomalies of Athens’ staircases. Come.”
He led me through the climate-controlled archive to a reading room where several documents lay carefully arranged on a large table. Some were protected behind glass, others recently printed.
“Here,” he said, pointing to what appeared to be a medieval manuscript, the Greek text accompanied by intricate geometric diagrams. “Metochites wrote that counting steps in Constantinople revealed ’the hidden architecture of divine mathematics.’ But this—” he indicated another, older document, “—suggests the phenomenon was already known in Athens by the 4th century BCE.”
I examined the fragment, a piece of papyrus containing diagrams and numbers.
“Pythagoras and his followers believed numbers were not just tools but the fundamental reality behind all things,” the professor continued. “They discovered that harmony in music could be expressed through simple ratios. What if they also discovered that physical space itself contains similar harmonies—ones that can only be perceived through the act of sequential counting?”
I thought of my experiences over the past days. “Not just perceived. Experienced. When I count those extra steps, I’m physically climbing them. It takes longer. I exert more effort.”
“Yes!” His eyes lit up. “The counting creates a bridge between perceived reality and mathematical reality. The ancient Greeks may have discovered this relationship between counting, climbing, and consciousness—a way to access what Plato called anamnesis, the remembering of knowledge from previous existences.”
“But why stairs? Why specifically ascending?”
The professor smiled. “Why does music move us emotionally? Why does mathematics reveal the secrets of the universe? Some relationships are fundamental.” He gestured to my notebook. “Your calculations suggest the phenomenon is strongest where mathematics and history intersect—where countless humans have climbed while contemplating the divine, the philosophical, the essential.”
I considered this. “If counting creates this bridge, then what happens if I apply mathematical transformations to the count itself?”
The professor’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“What if, instead of simply counting sequentially, I count according to specific mathematical sequences? Prime numbers only. Perfect squares. The digits of pi.” I tapped my notebook. “If counting is the key that unlocks this phenomenon, then different counting patterns might create different effects.”
Professor Alexopoulos leaned heavily on his cane, his expression shifting between excitement and concern. “An intriguing hypothesis. But be careful—mathematics has always existed in the boundary between discovery and creation. The Pythagoreans treated numbers as sacred precisely because they understood their power.”
That afternoon, I returned to Filopappou Hill with a new purpose. The stone steps I’d first counted days earlier now felt familiar, almost welcoming. I stood at the bottom, notebook ready, and began my experiment.
First, a standard count: “One, two, three…” The steps expanded to forty-seven, just as before. The now-familiar disorientation at Fibonacci points, brief glimpses of the past.
I descended, waited five minutes, then began again—this time counting only prime numbers: “Two, three, five, seven, eleven…”
The experience shifted dramatically. The steps seemed to stretch differently, creating unexpected intervals. At “forty-three,” I felt not disorientation but a sudden clarity, as if my mind had briefly touched something vast and ordered. No visions of the past appeared—instead, I perceived patterns in everything around me: the arrangement of nearby olive trees following perfect geometric progressions, clouds forming fractals against the blue sky.
I tried again with the Fibonacci sequence itself: “One, one, two, three, five…”
This count produced the most intense experience yet. As I spoke “twenty-one,” the world around me seemed to spiral inward and outward simultaneously, revealing nested patterns at every scale. I glimpsed not the past but mathematical relationships underlying reality itself—golden spirals in the landscape, perfect proportions in ancient and modern structures alike.
By sunset, I had tried five different counting sequences, each producing unique perceptual effects. The mathematics itself seemed to reshape my experience of physical space. I documented everything meticulously, certain I was touching the edges of something profound.
That night, I worked late in my apartment, developing a theoretical framework for what I was experiencing. If counting created a bridge between perceived and mathematical reality, then the specific pattern of counting might determine which aspect of mathematical reality became accessible. The implications were staggering.
I must have fallen asleep at my desk, because I dreamed of climbing an infinite staircase through shifting dimensions. Each step revealed mathematical truths as tangible experiences rather than abstract concepts. I woke at dawn, my neck stiff but my mind buzzing with possibilities.
Over the next week, I refined my experiments. I created a chart mapping different counting sequences to their effects on perception:
- Sequential counting: Revealed historical echoes, strongest at Fibonacci numbers
- Prime number counting: Enhanced pattern recognition, revealed geometric relationships
- Fibonacci counting: Created spiral-like perceptions, connected seemingly unrelated elements
- Pi-digit counting: Generated fluid, wavelike experiences of space and time
- Square number counting: Produced architectural insights, revealed structural harmonies
The manuscript I was developing had evolved far beyond my original sabbatical research. Pages filled with observations, theories, and mathematical formulas attempting to explain how the act of counting could alter the perceived dimensions of physical space. More surprisingly, the manuscript itself seemed to exhibit the same properties as the stairs—I would write what felt like five pages, only to count thirteen when reviewing my work later.
Professor Alexopoulos became increasingly excited as I shared my findings. “This goes beyond Metochites’ observations,” he said during one of our meetings. “You’re not just documenting the phenomenon; you’re actively exploring its parameters.”
“There’s one experiment I haven’t tried yet,” I told him. “The ultimate test would be to find a staircase with a precise ratio to a significant mathematical constant—something that would amplify the effect beyond what I’ve experienced so far.”
He nodded slowly. “The seventy-eight steps at Filopappou Monument. Their ratio to the visible steps creates a relationship to the square root of five—one of the fundamental irrational numbers in golden ratio calculations.”
“Perfect. And if I count using a specific pattern…”
“You might create a resonance effect.” He hesitated. “But consider the implications. If counting truly bridges perceived and mathematical reality, then pushing that bridge to its limits could have… consequences.”
Despite his warning—or perhaps because of it—I found myself at the base of Filopappou Monument as the sun began to set on my final evening in Athens. The seventy-eight steps gleamed golden in the fading light, stretching upward to the white marble structure. I had calculated everything carefully: if I counted using the Fibonacci sequence while ascending these specific steps at this specific time (sunset being a natural golden ratio point in the day), the mathematical resonance should be perfect.
I began climbing. “One, one, two, three, five…”
The steps immediately began to stretch and expand. By “thirteen,” the physical world had already begun to flicker more intensely than in any previous experiment. At “twenty-one,” I experienced a moment of profound disorientation—the steps seemed to simultaneously extend upward and spiral outward, creating impossible geometries.
“Thirty-four…”
The world around me transformed. I could perceive mathematical relationships directly—not as abstract concepts but as fundamental aspects of reality as tangible as color or texture. The golden spiral revealed itself everywhere, connecting past, present, and future through its perfect proportional growth.
“Fifty-five…”
Reality itself seemed to thin. I glimpsed not just ancient Athens but multiple Athenses existing simultaneously—versions that might have been, could be, perhaps were in other branches of possibility. The mathematics underlying everything became increasingly apparent, a vast and perfect music expressed through numbers and proportions.
“Eighty-nine…”
I shouldn’t have been able to reach this number—the staircase shouldn’t have contained enough steps, even with the expansion effect. Yet I continued climbing, each step bringing me closer to some threshold I could feel but not yet comprehend.
“One hundred forty-four…”
At this, the twelfth Fibonacci number, I experienced the most powerful shift yet. The world seemed to fold inward, revealing itself as both infinitely complex and perfectly simple. And there, at what felt like the convergence point of all possible mathematics, I saw myself—not as I was in that moment, but as I would be, looking back on this very experience.
Future-me was sitting at a desk, surrounded by stacks of papers—my manuscript, expanded beyond anything I could have imagined. Equations covered whiteboards. Diagrams illustrated concepts I had only begun to grasp. And in future-me’s eyes, I saw the recognition of this moment as the pivotal point that changed everything.
The vision faded as I reached the top of the monument. According to my count, I had climbed exactly 174 steps—78 × 2.236, the square root of 5.
Seventy-eight visible steps.
One hundred seventy-four counted steps.
A perfect mathematical resonance.
As I stood catching my breath, looking out over Athens bathed in the last golden light of day, I understood something fundamental: the “extra” steps hadn’t been hallucinations or perceptual anomalies. They had always existed in a dimension parallel to physical reality, accessible only through the cognitive bridge created by the act of counting.
My manuscript would explain this—how mathematics isn’t merely a tool for describing reality but a doorway into aspects of it that remain hidden to ordinary perception. How the ancient Greeks had discovered this relationship and encoded it into their architecture and philosophy. How the act of climbing while counting created a unique state of consciousness that allowed access to these hidden dimensions.
I descended as stars began appearing above the Acropolis. Twentythree steps down, exactly as expected. The phenomenon worked only in ascent, only when reaching toward greater understanding.
Three weeks later, back at my small university office, I reviewed my completed manuscript. What had begun as a sabbatical research project on mathematical patterns in ancient architecture had evolved into something far more profound—a theoretical framework suggesting that consciousness itself might operate through dimensional expansions similar to what I’d experienced on the stairs of Athens.
The manuscript exhibited the same property I’d noted during its creation: 120 written pages expanded to exactly 314 when counted—π × 100. The perfect circle, squared.
I submitted a brief article to a mathematical journal, outlining just enough of my discoveries to secure funding for a return trip. The responses were intrigued but skeptical—exactly what I’d expected. True understanding would require direct experience.
Sometimes at night, I find myself counting the steps in my apartment building. Thirteen visible steps, thirty-four when counted. The ratio isn’t as perfect as in Athens, the visions not as vivid—but they’re there, faint echoes of what I experienced. Perhaps the phenomenon exists everywhere to some degree, strongest in places where history, mathematics, and human contemplation have intersected for millennia.
Or perhaps Athens changed something fundamental in my perception, allowing me to glimpse what had always been there—the hidden architecture of reality, accessible through the simple act of counting steps.
I’ve secured a research grant to return next summer. This time, I won’t be alone—three colleagues have agreed to join me, curious to see if they too can learn to perceive and count the hidden steps, or if some unique aspect of my own consciousness created the phenomenon.
As I pack my notebooks for a preliminary visit next week, I wonder what other mathematical bridges might exist, waiting to be discovered through the right sequence of numbers, the right pattern of thought. And I wonder what my future self, glimpsed in that moment of perfect mathematical resonance, understood that I have yet to grasp.
Tomorrow, I’ll board a plane to Athens. And I’ll count every step along the way.