Glorious Exploits

by Ferdia Lennon

“You don’t rob a man of his suffering,” says Gelon quietly. “That’s his.”

think she’s proud, and for some reason, this pride in some palace thousands of miles away that she’ll never see again makes me sad, and yet I like her all the more for it.

These fellas are proud to be Athenian. It doesn’t last long, but while it’s there, it’s unmistakable and kind of beautiful and foolish.

It’s the maddest thing. ’Cause for the briefest moment, Syracusans and Athenians have blended into a single chorus of grief for this make-believe.

Common sense is common, has no imagination, and only works by precedent. It leaves the man who follows it poorer, if not in pocket, then in his heart. Fuck common sense.

Yet, he reasoned, perhaps in the end it was fitting, for his master was ever in love with misfortune and believed the world a wounded thing that can only be healed by story.