The Shadow of Achilles

After the Trojan war, one of Achilles' Myrmidons is washed upon strange shores. Memories of the Trojan war flood his mind as he aims to regain some semblance of purpose. He is the last Myrmidon and feels Achilles' golden dream of eternal glory dimming in the shade of obscurity. He fears that Aeneas, the Trojan fugitive, might have found refuge in this land. He must step out of the shadow of Achilles in order to find his own place in history. "I remember the great cosmic sea above as the stars glittered in unison. It was the night before the war's end, before the commander of the Myrmidons died so mercilessly under the same moonlit indifference of the heavens. I thought that the sea of stars heralded good fortune, that glory and splendor stood waiting before us like kings, each offering us a jewel-encrusted cup from which to soak in the unblemished taste of wine. But our commander perished. It was all over then. Hades began to mock us as our courage was in retreat. The Trojan war shook us to the core, and my heart still trembles mightily upon hearing its fierce mortal echoes. I thought that I was always prepared for war, that the Myrmidons would rush into the chaos as a river of armor froze and then stood waiting for the warriors of Greece to fight. The Myrmidons have all fallen apart from me. They emerged from the ants on Zeus' sacred oak. Zeus made them vast and innumerable as the ants on the oak. The Myrmidons were the first to build ships with sails, but now history recedes with a mere, wistful blink. I stand here on the verge of pure, static zero. No thoughts nor memories can I marshal. The ten-year siege of Troy has yielded an afterimage: the blood-rimmed bowl of the ocean being chased by a blankness too beautiful to be called oblivion. History has already marched ahead. And I, an Ant man among the dead shadows of other Ant men, drown in its unparalleled shade."