He Will Sleep

I am not dead. Only asleep. 

 

I sleep as punishment for what I did awake. I remember waking another time, in the night, with the sky on fire. The smell of ashes was the shadow that came around the corner before our enemies did, with their torches and their arrows on fire. Unrelenting, barbarian invaders, who pressed their boots into the soil so firmly my people- they gave us a name, but I will not repeat it- were sure the rock held imprints of their boots. The invaders held high banners, threw their name, called Just and righteous! My people suffered beneath their hands and blades. The trees fell. The houses fell. Into the blood of the people who fell. My philtatos. His blood. 

 

I remember the cheers when I came onto the battlefield. When the tides turned. When I held up my blade. 

 

I killed first the man who killed me. I sliced stomach, split skulls, crushed ribs, to get to him, to watch him soak the ground red and black. As though the base of a mountain had crumbled, the rest of them tumbled back. Still, I drove forward. I dragged him fallen body behind my horse and rode from our lands to theirs, burned their houses, their women, their children, in their beds. Strung up their lords, their best soldiers, and burned their temples until their people cried mercy. Then I burned their crops and left them to devour one another like the animals they were. 

 

A hero I became. 

 

A hero I am. 

 

I could not stop. When I had killed the foreigners, I carried their lords back and dragged them over the earth, until my men averted their eyes. Then I killed the men who did, and I killed their wives, and the children they would have raised. I dragged my boots into the earth until all the imprints of our enemies could not be seen under mine. My hand dreamed of the blade when they were not together, and they dreamed of blood when they were. I had been chosen. I had been born to be a saviour and hero. I would hero my way to my death, if I could, but I was too much a hero to die. 

 

If he cannot die, he will sleep, my people said, as they pressed me into this tomb and removed my blade from me, and removed the sun from my eyes and the air from my lips. 

 

They gave me ashes. Philtatos.

 

In my dreams, I am brought from this tomb, when they need a hero again. In my dreams, my blade is returned, and we have a new dream together. 

 

I hear footsteps near. 

 

I see a little sunlight. 

Art by David Martinez