Costas Komborozos

The Epic of Troy Costas Komborozos

Achilles is an old man who struggles to remember more about his past and how he failed to become fully immortal on the Trojan battlefield. He sees Helen appear before him and lead him to a river, which reminds him of the river in which he nearly lost all his mortality. He feels a tale being told as the events of the past gradually come back to him. "I once had a name. It was mine and mine alone. Now I fear that it will be forgotten in time, left alone to wither in the remote, unloved corners of recorded time. Kings and queens uttered it in a silence too precious to be heard. An inimitable dread lived in its shadow, in the fading whisper of its last spoken letter. It punctured the airy silence and then went its deep, untrodden, inaudible way. But it remained fixed in the stony interior of every fear-deprived heart, the heart of those who joined me in battle. All Myrmidons spoke it, forging the strength from which to feed their fearless advance toward the enemy. Their memory enshrined it, kissing the unknown behind syllables well-known, as if shedding off layers of untold complexity in a mere moment. I was the Myrmidon prince, the one that led a mighty contingent into a mass of Trojan infantrymen. Rivers of iron moved through me, streaming through my every vessel as glittering rays shone off an unyielding armor of bronze. I am now forgotten and unloved by both time and timelessness. Forever has fled from me, eluded me. I sit here alone at the edge of nowhere, feeling the stark cold fact of being no one. History will never remember me. Priam's eyes burn in my memory, reminding me of how the sweet flow of mortality remains unimpeded. I could have died young and be remembered forever. But I lived and doomed myself to anonymity. Helen appears before me from time to time, springing up from the air. The look in her eyes is always the same. Her beauty is the same. She never speaks, for her presence alone tugs at my heavy heart and tears through the mere thought of becoming as I once was. Now she is before me again. She remains still, but then she turns around and begins to walk into the distance. She wants me to follow her. This has never happened before. I rise and struggle to summon the mere semblance of strength. Helen never glances back to make sure I am following her. She knows I will."