The Pink Gemstone
The building on Paramithias Street looked like any other derelict structure, graffiti-scrawled walls, rusted balconies. It was the pink diamond that had everyone whispering. Some claimed it was never real. Others swore they'd seen it glint under the rubble on a moonless night. Rumor had it that it was once owned by a jeweler, who’d hidden it in a column before fleeing the Nazis. And like all good legends, it had a number: thirty million. When the performance art collective rented the space for a durational piece titled In Case of Revolution, Knock Twice, they didn’t expect a heist. But on opening night, a blackout sliced through the building. Guests clutched their wine glasses and phones while performers froze mid-monologue. When the lights flickered back on, a chunk of the exposed brick wall was gone. So was a small lead box embedded within it. The next morning, an anonymous audio message circulated through the local network of artists. It was transcribed and shared in cryptic fragments: “This is the building we wanted to buy. The diamond was never missing, it was waiting. You looked at it every day, and thought it was rubble.” Police called it a prank. The owner called it proof. The collective blamed ghosts. Someone discovered a new scene added to the performance : a slow-motion scan of the stolen diamond, rotating against a black background, shimmering pink as dusk in Athens. And in the corner, scrawled in digital red: “Art is theft. Memory is the vault.”