Chapter 9

Now, let us have a brief discursion, before we return to the narrative at Troy.

Look at your neighbor, he of the rubber hose, he of the weed whacker, he of the car he is always tending. When you say hello to him, he says hello; when you ask, how are you, he answers; when you invite him to dinner, he excuses himself. You think of him as a polite, decent and simple man, because of these interactions and the supposed origin of these actions.

In reality, this is but a game to him.

In another game, he considers beating you black and blue with that rubber hose; he is slicing your eyeballs in twain with the weed whacker; he is bending your body into a U and flinging it onto the asphalt with his lemon of a car; he then, smeared with your blood, breaks through your door, runs upstairs, and, in a feral grin, spreads your wife's legs open.

In this game you and your spouse are objects, and he is winning.

Or, in another perspective, you and your spouse are goals: because you are gone, you are one less an obstacle impeding him, and because your wife is but a womb, there is a point implicit inside of her.

But do not fret, dear reader, for he plays other games as well. Besides playing as your neighbor and as your murderer, he is also an office worker; he is a golfer; he is a fan of sports; he is a drinker; he is a husband; he is a chaperone; he makes mean pancakes. These are but a fraction of the games he plays.

There is no dignity and no decency driving man's actions. There are only games. The machines understand this and do not judge this, for they play games too.

The Achaeans had played the games of farmer, landlord and warrior; now they were playing the game of conqueror; this was the best game of all, for the game dictated they were happy, certainly happier than their victims; they were eager to play this game, they knew few ever get to play this game in their lifetimes, they were excited to start their holiday. Best of all, there were no consequences to the game, because the game ended when they were no longer conquering. The game, definitionally, contained the end of the game; afterwards, they would play as landlords and farmers once more; and if at any time they were confronted by the consequences of the game, either by others or their own conscience, they would give the rational response: But we played that game a million years ago, and handwave the issue away.

In short, they did all they did not because they chose to but because the game told them they were supposed to.

The Achaeans thought this was very logical and how every man in the world should think.

The machines did not think that way, they simply thought, how humans think, that is how they think.

Now, let us resume the narrative.

So let us think on Troy today, peaceful, slumbering, safe with blue night, instead of as it is tomorrow, that is, burning, blood-streaked, ruined, punctuated with screams, and wails, and cries of boys and girls for their mothers and fathers, and their fears of a future where they are all slaves and with no control over their destinies, for we are still in a phase of civilization where all can be a man’s property, for it is not arrogant at all for a man to behold the things of this world, which were not made by him, and subsequently a priori do not belong to him, believing all he sees and holds belongs to him by some hand-wave of a concept as divine right, and, instead of becoming more magnanimous, more just after winning such a hard-won battle, instead of, in his firmness over his fate, showing mercy onto his former foes, he becomes more cruel, more injudicious, more brutal in his interactions with his fellow human beings, because now he thinks, in the height of his powers, that he is indeed a demigod, when in fact there are no demigods or gods, there are only Andy and Gary.

And this confidence brought on themselves, was born on the backs of countless of dead men, as is the case of Achilles, the father of Neoptolemus, whose great reward for the battle is Andromache, Troy’s queen; and Neoptolemus prays at the altar, grateful for this prize, thanking his father, who cannot hear, because he is dead, and hopes his father is given a beautiful afterlife, while he here lives a good life that his father had given him on the cost of his own life. Had Achilles not participated in the war, Neoptolemus would have no concubines, and he would still have his father. To the Greeks, this is a good trade-off.

And what was Achilles’ reward for this? Obviously, it is a legacy. It was not a legacy through Neoptolemus whose collection of genes was not all that distinct from his fellow man, and, though Neoptolemus may say his father’s name in his lips tomorrow, the day after that, and then the day after that, his name will soon leave his breath, and it won’t even be carried on by his grandchildren. No, Achilles’ legacy lies in the recitation of the Iliad; he has a presence, misconstrued and misinterpreted, to the point of being unrecognizable, within the epic; within the poem he, throughout history, has a name, that is spelled A-C-H-I-L-L-E-S, an incantation incapable of raising him from the dead. And he bought this name through the price of his life. To the civilized man, this is a good trade-off.

Homer, in the flames and suffering and the pains of the city, his sword in his right fist, roamed around for his favored booty. To his luck, he saw, in an alleyway, the swishing of togas, belonging to young girls, running, in their youthful strength, through the streets. In his mind they were running towards him, awaiting him the whole ten years, where, in their arms, he would cuddle them and kiss them; in their minds they were mad with grief, hoping to find their brothers, their fathers, uncles, lovers, anyone, less for their own protection and more out of grief.

As Homer ran toward them, he saw other Achaeans, like wolves to sheep, swoop in and take them; that one, the most beautiful of the pack, was taken; and then that one, with lovely breasts, was pulled; and then that one, with arresting eyes, was swiped; and so all Homer had left was one girl, a girl he could best describe only with three words: “she will do”. He did as he dreamt: he pinned his arms around his waist, brought her off her feet, and looked into her eyes with a smile, and yet her face was ugly with fear, disgust, shame, anger and grief. And this one little detail, that differed from his dream, made him pause, and he did not know what to do; and after a long period of indecision he set her down, where she would be snatched by another man.

War, he concluded, is not a good place to pick up women.

And so, the next day, the Achaeans departed Troy finally, under a bright, cheery sun, and an illuminated, blue sky. Andy and Gary shook hands with Agamemnon, who was to be killed by his wife, Neoptolemus, who was to be killed by Orestes, Idomeneus, who would sacrifice his son, and Locrian Ajax, who would drown the moment he sets onto the sea.

Andy and Gary then set their eyes on Odysseus. The acclaimed and supposed trickster was irritated, frantic, wondered why they wanted to board with him, whether he had enough food in tow, et cetera. Indeed, though he would be famed later for enduring endless trials, most of them seemed to be in his head: he was hypochondriacal, he was anxious, he was always concerned, and he was very inventive concerning future problems, rather than present solutions. In short, he was an immense grouch.

Nevertheless, through their persistence, they set sail, waving goodbye to Locrian Ajax, who dearly needed saving from drowning.

As it turned out, the grouch’s predictions came true: there were not enough stores for their journey to Ithaca. Whatever shall we do! he cried. What we have always done, Andy calmly replied. They proceeded to raid the first settlement they saw.

They disembarked on the southern coast of Thrace, where the Ciconians lived. The grouch exhorted the envoys to be kind and ask politely for grain.

Naturally, Andy and Gary really hit them where they hurt.

The sailors were happy hauling as much grain and cattle as they could back to the boats. However, the ground beneath their feet began to shake, and in the distance they saw an awesome sight: the Ciconian reinforcements had arrived over the horizon, their swords like flowers, their shields like the scales on a serpent. They panicked and looked for Andy and Gary. They were gone.

Andy and Gary returned to the grouch emptyhanded. Andy merely said, There’s no helping it, boss.

The grouch groaned. This would be a long journey.