Today I came upon the bones of a novel about an ancient boxer, a virtuous man who lived in the shadow of great and evil people. I decided to blow a few minutes reading the beginning of some unfinished 2010 business. His life touched me again, so his story will be serialized here.

Euthymus [Grace-speaker] was a contemporary of Leonidas of Sparta [circa 480 B.C.] He became the only ancient athlete revered by poets and philosophers of the increasingly cynical Age of the Diodachi [200s B.C.]. My primary sources are Menander and Pausanius.

We know of ancient athletes primarily through the efforts of their family to etch their acts in stone. Euthymus’ acts were preserved outside of the normal epigraphic records, possibly through the efforts of his descendents to preserve his memory in a more perishable medium. So I have adopted the narrative device of his grandchildren, who would have been the most likely repositories of his memories, for he was said by Pausanius to have lived into ‘unnatural old age’ and to have left life ‘by some means other than death’.

As you were up-from-the-sea when Great Grandfather took his leave we recorded as best we could his farewell words. We are sorry that you were not present to hear him speak. As none of us were old enough to have known him in the days when he spoke we do not know if he truly sounded well, although he seemed flush with happiness, and his great big fists clenched and unclenched with an easy rhythm as he spoke.

Please sit close children. This is not easy, though it is the least I can do for you who have cared for me for so long as I’ve wandered among the orchards of the mind.

A ghost I am. My body still carries me across the face of the world. But God no longer speaks to me with his unseen hand. That place within where ambitions of excellence once ran wild, has long been but an echo...

Last night an old one came to me in a dream that was not mine. My rival, God-born, was the greatest of the fist-fighters. He crushed me out of spite for Thunder-chief’s crown; but he broke both hands doing it and was shamed by the rod-bearers for over-reaching when he could not fulfill his oath to fight in the all-power-thing. We were both broken by his ambition that day and are forever linked. My old enemy is sending his avatar to gather what is left of me. I hope soon to be relieved of the weariness that weights me and would speak with you. I must meet the avatar by nightfall.

I am fortunate: Fortune has blessed me with you; with a body that does not rot; and a life worth remembering. But Fortune did not turn her smile on me until I met Joy…

Soon after Great Grandfather told his story he slipped into the little-death. Fearing that Death himself was near we ran to fetch Mother and the prize-seekers. Upon our return his couch was empty. The men down at the tie-up said that they saw Great Grandfather walk into the surf at sundown. His body has not been found. The sailors refused to put out to sea for the entire fading of the moon; some citing respect for his passing; others speaking of a strange dark light that was said to have played on the water before the sinking sun.

We sat for his telling through the hot hours, with little enough papyrus to sketch this epistle. We sensed this was a singular thing, and, when Great Grandfather reached for a drink we each took our turn trying to memorize his tale, leaving to go practice our mnemonic devices, myself with stones, Amber with her cones, and so on with the others. We have recalled each our own committed portion of the tale as accurately as possible, and have consulted the prize-seekers for certain verifications; making six and three parts to his epiphany.