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Achilles is back.

This morning I awoke to a bunch of shouting coming from the beach. Achilles’ and his Magensian crew sailed in just before dawn.

It was like a goddamned holiday festival. Guys were running all throughout camp shouting things like: “Achilles is back! Our champion has returned!”

The men’s unfettered glee was a little unnerving, bordering on pathetic. Regardless, I was guilty of rushing to the beach with the rest.

I got there just in time to watch the Magensians finish unloading their boat. -They had been working on stacking a pile of treasure in front of Achilles, who was just staring at them, looking very stoic and cool.

It was obvious that Achilles and his men had spent their vacation raiding some seaside villages.

After the Magnesians had finished piling valuables at Achilles feet, he nodded with approval and started walking up towards the encampment.

The enormous crowd parted in front of Achilles, making his trip to the camp look very regal. Although he wasn’t smiling, you could tell that he was pretty pleased with himself.

Anyway, before he could reach the encampment, Agamemnon and a crew of generals rode up to greet him. Odysseus, Diomedes, Nestor and Ajax were amongst them.

Achilles stopped and nodded.

Agamemnon shouted: “Achilles, son of Peleus, it's a gift to find you on our shore once again!”

At that, all of our men went wild.

You would have thought Agamemon had just shouted “Let’s get this party started!” Men were banging on anything that would make noise and throwing each other into the air. It seemed as if Agamemnon's greeting had driven the men insane.

Anyway, Achilles coolly raised his hands and just as quickly as they had exploded, the men once again fell silent.

Achilles replied: “It is good to see you as well, King Agamemnon. Yes, it is good to be back with the Achaeans!”

With that, the men lost their minds once again. However, this time it was final.

Achilles raised his hands.

Agamemnon raised his hands.

There was no effect. -The army was insane with glee.

Achilles was swarmed.

Agamemnon and the commanders had to fight forward, almost trampling men to get to Achilles.

I couldn’t see much except for the heads of the generals on horseback. The crowd around me became so dense that I was lifted off of my feet.

Eventually, I saw Diomedes pull Achilles onto his horse. With that, Agamemnon and his crew turned around and began to fight their way back to the camp.

Most of the men chased after Achilles and the commanders.

As the crowd began to disperse, I could see that Nestor had been pulled down from his horse during the struggle. He was cursing wildly, and swinging his cane at anyone he could hit. I saw this Athenian captain named Acamas come to Nestor’s aid. -He got it right in the teeth.

A huge celebration has been going on all day.

Odysseus hasn’t been around, and it has been up to me to keep the Ithacan camp under control. -I guess that things over here haven’t been too bad.

I heard that the Magnesian and Myrmidon camps are in total chaos. –Polites went over there with Misenus to have a look. He said that some of the revelers had set their own tents on fire.

No one has seen Achilles since this morning, however.

5 Comments:

Blogger Jim Biancolo said...

Damn, this is great stuff. I'm totally hooked!

1:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Followed a link from #wordpress nice work and keep it up.

3:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the sort of pseudo-Iliad language you're using, the things you might have expected in the grammar/wordings of the Iliad but seem so out of place in your retelling. The formalities of the leaders... Absolutely brilliant! We should write this together for a screen script and send it to hollywood... ;-) Keep up the great work...

1:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the sort of pseudo-Iliad language you're using, the things you might have expected in the grammar/wordings of the Iliad but seem so out of place in your retelling. The formalities of the leaders... Absolutely brilliant! We should write this together for a screen script and send it to hollywood... ;-) Keep up the great work...

1:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dig the "Anyway,..." - it is brilliant. At first it annoyed me but lately I almost burst out laughing whenever I come across one.

5:17 AM  

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