IN HIS TENT ACHILLES GRIEVED WITH HIS WHOLE BEING AND THE GODS SAW HE WAS A MAN ALREADY DEAD, A VICTIM OF THE PART THAT LOVED, THE PART THAT WAS MORTAL. IN THE STORY OF PATROCLUS NO ONE SURVIVES, NOT EVEN ACHILLES, WHO WAS NEARLY A GOD. PATROCLUS RESEMBLED HIM. THEY WORE THE SAME ARMOUR.
Orestes feels the tension; taunt as a violin’s aching, a rising crescendo. The sort of song that needs an answer. The sort of question that hangs, and hangs, and hangs until there is nothing but their breaths, their heartbeats, between them. Somewhere, in a place distant and far away, his own mind begs:
Ask me.
Ask him what his dream would be.
Orestes likes to think somewhere Patroclus and Achilles grew old; he likes to imagine Hektor with his grown son, riding around the walls of Troy, breaking a brilliant stallion side-by-side. Ask him what he dreamt of, when he allowed himself the rare and private privilege. Ask him, what has kept him going for so, so long.
<>i>Ask me.
Orestes would say: the chance of growing old with a cabin in the wild by the sea, far from anyone, with the person I love most and a pile of poetry
There is a chamber of his heart that unlocks when she says Oh. Good.
There is something within him that unravels, unravels, unravels; until his mind and thoughts and future are a pile of yarn, held in limp hands. It is the feeling of Prometheus the moment the eagle steals his liver; Atlas beneath the weight of the world, hoping just for a moment the sentence will end. It never does; but how does that knowledge serve them? For a moment, Orestes is not old; for a moment, Orestes has never been hurt; for a moment, he hopes with the brilliance of the sun as it rises.
He thinks of many things in their tension. Do you know together, our eyes are the colour of the overcast sky? Blue and grey? Do you know you are more than a weapon?
When Marisol’s wing touches him, the tension that is left between them dissolves: if her emotions are unbecoming, his are more so. He tucks her beneath his chin, presses so close their hearts might as well be one, and says, “You do not have to wait, Marisol.” Then she is drawing back, and looks at him with damp eyes. He presses his nose to her cheek; consolingly, softly as a butterfly’s wings, and then withdraws. His eyes are measured, patient; they do not betray the whirlwind of thoughts within him—
A cabin by the sea—
the waves crashing—
and then the desert sun, burning, burning,
Sit. Sit and remember you are ash.
Orestes clears his throat. The action does not prevent it from being husky; intense. “I would not make you wait.” Then, a little awkwardly, a little uncertainty: “I meant what I said at your festival. I would not like to be folded anywhere, in front of you. I cannot bear it. Your eyes—“
His voice softens, softens. Orestes’s speaks in an almost-whisper. “They are beautiful, but they cut me to the quick. I could not make you wait.” He is stumbling over himself with joy, with trepidation—make her happy, make her happy make her happy, don’t mess up, make her happy— “Please, Marisol—what can I do for you? You’ve come such a long way. Please… sit. Let me find you something to eat, or drink, or—“
Orestes does not know what else to say; in his own way, this is a confession, too.
In his own way, it is the first time in a very long time the sea is not singing in his ears.
No; in that moment, soft gold and with eyes like the edges of the sky, he is nothing but hopeful, nothing but a man.
@
"THOUGH THE LEGENDS
CANNOT BE TRUSTED
THEIR SOURCE IS
THE SURVIVOR, THE ONE
WHO HAS BEEN
ABANDONED.
WHAT WERE THE
GREEK SHIPS ON FIRE
COMPARED TO THIS
LOSS?"
CANNOT BE TRUSTED
THEIR SOURCE IS
THE SURVIVOR, THE ONE
WHO HAS BEEN
ABANDONED.
WHAT WERE THE
GREEK SHIPS ON FIRE
COMPARED TO THIS
LOSS?"
