The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.

But even here, behind the darkness of my eyelids, I cannot name the thing I hope for.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

The numbness now is merciful. A last few moments of it. Then, the fall.

Let the stories of him be something more.

Her mouth tightens. “Have you no more memories?” I am made of memories. “Speak, then.”