But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. βNo man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.β βBut what if he is your friend?β Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. βOr your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?β βYou ask a question that philosophers argue over,β Chiron had said. βHe is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone elseβs friend and brother. So which life is more important?β We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard. 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. I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
I am made of memories
And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. ... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what is means to be alive.
He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.