The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

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 did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.

“It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.”

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”