[Ancient Greece] Nowhere to Call Home

From Pella, a city surrounded by mountains on three sides, east across the Abela Plain, and onward to the Ganges basin drawn on a scroll, where it borders the edge of the world: taken together, this was the legendary life of Alexander.

What kind of longing drove him to set out on a campaign of conquest, even to seek the “ocean at the edge of the world”?

The history books recorded his victories, but not his longing. Perhaps that longing had never been on any map.

Qin Shanshan would always remember that night.

Night pressed down on the mountains, as if Prometheus’s fire had been taken back. Only the cold, dark outlines of heaven and earth remained.

The young man revered as the son of Zeus and king of Asia stood at the edge of the mountain peak, as though a god had descended to earth. He lifted his chin slightly and gazed down at the vast landscape stretching eastward. Blood dripped from his spear onto the sandstone, like a hot, brilliant spark, igniting an equally burning echo in her chest.

He walked toward her, one step at a time.

His pupils held the clear blue of a full moon, yet seemed on the verge of shattering. He hid his words in the cracks of the darkness, words that outweighed ten thousand passionate exchanges.

“The Thebans have every right to hate me. I destroyed their homes. They can take revenge and reclaim everything they lost.”

“But you can’t. You’re different from everyone else. I never did those things to you, so you… can’t be this cruel.”

“Please stay. Even if… it isn’t for me.”

Later, Shanshan did everything she could to prevent the inevitable ending.

But he seemed to be asleep. His lashes cast a small shadow over his eyelids, and a faint flush colored his cheeks.

She clasped his hand. Its lingering warmth passed through her palm and seeped into her bones. She whispered his name over and over by his ear, but he never answered.

He still doesn’t know my name.

My real name.

A sharp ringing seemed to burst in her ears, leaving her dazed.

In the vast white mist, she seemed to see that boy again. Though a thousand years separated them, she still believed he had once breathed in time with the universe.

The golden-haired boy stood alone atop a rose-gold mountain peak. His eyes were clear and bright, burning like the sun.

He said, “If the mountain won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain.”

So this mountain wasn’t that mountain.

So that was it.

Alexander had always known Shanshan was hiding something, even her name.

Your arrival was a gift from the gods.

When you passed by me like a dream, you granted my body immortality.

Yet you left me with this one Achilles’ heel:

The only place where I can hurt, where I can lose, where you can pierce me with your own hand.

Theme: The past and the future