The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

What had Deidameia thought would happen, I wondered, when she had her women dance for me? Had she really thought I would not know him? 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.

I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?

And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity.

Our invasion became an occupation.