We are not the only ones to consider grey the colour of depression. "Things look grey," we say… and they are indeed grey - grey footpaths, grey apartment buildings, trash cans, exhaust pipes… The hungry chameleon, lost in the labyrinths of Athens, so far from his proper habitat, wouldn't change his grey colour for anything. Not only did things look grey to him: he was grey himself. He made no effort at all to fit in with his new surroundings. Why should he bother? Vanity of vanities for a chameleon in the suburb of Helioupolis. Whichever direction he took, it was the same: Are Pangrati, Neos Kosmos, Sepolia, from his viewpoint any better as neighbourhoods? Besides, wherever he went there were people who thought he was a hobgoblin, or a demon, or an extra-terrestrial. In the end they shoved this unknown form of life into a cardboard box and sent him to the island of Aigina. The live flies and the worms that we gave him at first left him indifferent. Anorexia and dehydration - he had lost so much weight that his ribs were showing. Something had to be done. In the evening we forced him to eat a little piece of chicken. Unexpectedly then, with the stimulation of taste, he recovered, turning a vivid green colour. The choice of colour had nothing to do with the environment: obviously it was just the colour that meant enjoyment… The next day, in the sunlight, we placed him in the middle of a clump of baby oak trees in pots. There, free but under supervision to prevent him from disappearing, he became quite lively. He started targeting the flies. Lightning quick, he would shoot out his tongue, which he kept rolled up in his mouth and which was the length of his entire body. His celebrated abilities at camouflage become apparent immediately: now green, now the colour of branches, now a succession of colourings covering all the shades of mother Earth. His movements, slow and careful, were clearly the product or mature thought and calculated with extreme precision. He always tested the branches before entrusting his weight to them. He always chose the best route to follow. His eyes could swivel and focus independently: forwards, backwards, up, down, diagonally to the right, diagonally to the left….anywhere. I realised that his brain could process two pictures simultaneously, something unthinkable for us. His hit-rate with flies was nine out of ten. The scourge of insects, he must have terrified them. He even hit a wasp while it was sitting on a flower. In one hour he ate about thirty flies. Judging that he had eaten enough and unfortunately having other jobs to do, I decided to catch him and put him back in his own area. Suddenly I noticed something I will never forget: the chameleon had gone pitch black and was turning menacingly to bite me. With my own eyes I saw what they mean when they say "black with rage". The language of colour seems to be the same for all animals, I thought. The following days, in the course of his daily walk, he taught us that cold is faded yellow and happiness green… Only red and blue were missing for us to discover the meaning of all the colours. There are other aspects of his behaviour, to, that we haven't witnessed, for example the erotic side. As a former student at the School of Fine Arts I admired his peculiarities and I am convinced that as painters, chameleons are at an advantage over humans, since the field of their artistry is themselves and they can at the same time imitate visual stimuli, express their feelings and engage in pictorial creativity, something very difficult for the rest of us. It does indeed seem, from what I have read about them, that their abilities reflect learning and practice and are not merely something innate or inherited. They must become students if they are to distinguish themselves in their art. The longer I observed him over the two months that we kept him until his recovery, the more I became persuaded of his deep wisdom. He concentrated in himself all the greatest virtues: patience, attentiveness, method, stoicism, calm, devotion to his goals, self-control. I am certain that he considered us foolish and entirely unnecessary. I saw it in his eyes, with their unique double gaze, above all when he looked at me from the side and from behind with his left eye, while with his other eye he calmly continued his survey of the foliage in his search for flies. Besides, who of us would ever think of climbing up on one's tail like a fakir on a magic rope? Just to reach a branch that is harder than normal to get at!