Costas Komborozos

Troy Costas Komborozos

His name's echo dies where the streak of sunlight on the sea ends. The old man once dreamed of dying young and strong on the battlefield, before time would irrevocably reduce him to bare bones and erase him from a nameless, glory-deprived existence. He was the greatest warrior, the one who killed his greatest opponent and rose enviously even in the eyes of dust-filled death. His name echoed in the lips of young and old, becoming firmly emblazoned in the minds of those fallen at his hand. Now, the wind can barely trace the unseen alphabet of his life. He thought he would perish and be remembered forever. Now, he feels the images of glorious youth receding into irrelevance. When he secretly gathers the strength to do so, he goes out to the sea and waits for his mother to emerge from the waves. He waits, but she does not come. And then he knows why: unlike him, she is immortal. He wants her to appear and complete the last of her immortalizing act, the one she performed on him while he was an infant. A woman clad in bright white slips mysteriously into his field of vision from time to time. It is not his mother. When he steps on the beach and prepares to dip his heel in the churning waters, he sees her standing a short distance away. Her gaze is unmistakably familiar to him. Her beauty has remained while I have lived a long miserable life leading to anonymous death, he tells himself. "Helen," he calls out with his trembling inner voice. She reminds him that his heart's deepest yearning remains untouched by immortality's unquenchable flame. Then the old man is taken back to the war that returns to haunt his lonely days. Achilles' blade unbloodies itself, his eyes unkissed by the flawless sight of her. Then a mysterious tide causes him to see his life unfold through the eyes of this beautiful woman.