"Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another."
- Homer, The Iliad
What had I to lose? She was forever lost to me with the return of that rakish devil.
All my desires would go unfulfilled, and all my efforts were for naught – rather than serving my head on a silver platter, I offered up my dignity and composure. Those traits so engrained in me were ruined by the merest suggestion of a life that was utterly alien and unconsidered until it was bluntly suggested. A slip of paper and a slip of a girl destroyed that which sustained and defined me for years. Yet, I cannot lay the blame at her door, even now when my last hope has died. I have striven towards this end with eyes and heart open - in the way a supplicant would sacrifice himself to appease a goddess so removed from him, he doubts her existence as well as her concern.
I am not the only one who allowed this tender, bitter destruction to take place, but I am the one it fully triumphed over. I had not Oak's stability, nor Troy's tragic end. My end will come with utter shame and no absolution in sight. There was nothing left of me to lose with his death. I sacrificed the last of myself for a vision that was never mine to have.
How strange that I can form my thoughts of destruction with ease, and could never woo her with the same proficiency. It seems I am built for ruin; in my hour in the sun, I shamed myself with my frenetic and unusual gestures and words. Now when all is lost, I am more myself than I was when happiness was within my grasp. I am reflective, quiet and distinguished once more when there is nothing in my life to recommend its salvation.
I suspect now I lied when I said I was without hope – perhaps I can salvage some small part of myself she has not touched. To the gaol I go.
