Achilles

achilles a short story by the saruaon

boxing never tests the strength of knuckles as much as it does the strength of the knees. they should not buckle down as the weight of the world was strung on every tendon as the sharpest arrow on a most tense bow. it was good to be a boxer. it was great to be a fighter. it was perfect to be lover. boxing, contrary to the gory image that it brings up in the minds of the people, is an art of love. the elements of work, courage and risk involved qualify it to be a process of highest spiritual mettle. he was one of the very few people who had understood the fact and had put in much rigor to become one with the natural process of perfection. achilles was a name that none would forget. a local legend in kottaipuram had it, that there was a generation that had gotten used to believe that achilles was a light heavyweight boxer than a legendary greek hero. no one remembered his real name. it was not important. but he had an unequalled fame in the city which would remember him with awe and mystery for years to come. he was the greatest that they had ever produced. he always knew that and never minded. he fought. and fight was the only thing he ever did. achilles had a reach of 68 inches. it was a cold evening that they had met. she was a queen and he was a thug. at twenty two years of age, the man who had not taken part in any of the amateur or college level boxing circuits was demanding a position as a boxer in her nationwide promotions. she was neither irritated nor angry, but most amused at the level of confidence he had when he walked in and told her that she would like to meet him. he was about 5’ 11” and slightly built. he had very normal features and was everyman except for two things – his hands and his eyes. he had fisted his hands and they looked like huge mallets. his eyes were vividly black and deep-set diamonds rather than human eyes. he was very comfortable in her three-star suite though he would have never seen such a room ever in his life before. kottaipuram was not initially a stop in her journey. she was forced to break her trip further down south as she had to meet some obscure uncle of hers. she hated such meetings and the unnatural fawning that accompanied it, but she had to put up with the same as the heiress to a much envied chain of entertainment industry. she worked out the number of people that he would have had to bribe to obtain an interview with her as she never allowed visitors in private and smiled. she asked him to sit down and was moved to laughter when he had finished telling her the purpose of his visit. she stopped laughing when she came to know that he had broken into the hotel to meet her. she stopped hearing the meaning of his words as the sounds led her to believe that he had something that no other man in the whole world could give. she was surprised at her own actions when she found herself signing a contract for the man sitting in front of her as an amateur

journeyman for a trial period of up to six months or three fights, whichever was earlier. five years down the line he was her best boxer on the line and he was growing only better. he was a star and he knew it. he was loved by the people and he did not mind that. soon, he became the biggest brand name from kottaipuram as he was achilles, the fighter. except for a sports accessories company, he did not endorse anything else and this exclusive nature made his image grander. but much unlike what his image suggested he was neither the care-a-damn punk nor a sophisticated hit-man. he was a hard-working athlete who kept most strictly to his ethics in and outside the ring. he was not the ultramodern gadget-savvy recluse who spent hours in a hi-tech gym. he worked out in the outdoors. he was a spartan whose best trainer was nature. he never fought with anyone outside his weight class despite the pressure following his fairytale success. nor did he ever study another fighter’s match tapes to devise strategies. he fought in the only way he knew and that was the way of winning. at that time, his record was an impressive 28-0 with 26 kos. he would silently retire from the top of his game four years down the line with a record of 49-0 with 43 kos. some said it was 50-0 with 44 kos. he never bothered to explain. it was seventh consecutive first round knock out that had earned him his title shot. he was a popular favorite who did not burden himself about impressing the crowd. his essentially stylized footwork and lightning quick punches made his extensive repertoire invincible. he was a force to reckon with in the ring. when that was written about him, people who had seen him fight declared it to be the greatest cliché of the year. he was a consistent fighter and hence the most feared. the people started calling him achilles when his much publicized ‘euthanasia punch’ had clicked every single time. the perceived move of his knocking out the opponent to prevent them from suffering any further added to the sympathetic hero image that was made out of him. he only saw that as a fine winning strategy against men who were not sure if they were in a boxing ring or a cricket ground. they had just stood waiting to be hit. it never made a difference to him, for it was all about focus and placement. he was not there to hurt people. he was there to celebrate an art-form. he won his first title that he held till vacating the spot. she knew the implications of being seen with him, but did not mind at all. all the gossip-columns had enough to feed them for months when they predicted a knot between the star boxer and his famous promoter. rumor had it that he was seen to enter her suite but never was noted to return. she was looking on as he stood by the window of the eleventh floor penthouse suite. he turned to face her and smiled very slowly. it was one of those moments when their silence had spoken louder. she was dressed in a pink cotton summer wear that made her look more a child than a woman. her cuddling with herself on that comfortably huge couch added to that. her eyes were cold yet intense. she had a million thoughts and one man running in her mind. he stood there, on the other hand, with a million thoughts about one woman. they knew that they completed each other. they just did not want to accept it. he was bailed out on a huge sum. after a lot of strings being pulled, the newspapers reported in a foggy manner about some drunk-driving allegations on the usually gentle boxer. no one knew about him mauling a police officer who had stopped him and insulted her. he never usually boxed outside the ring. that night was not usual. and anyway, it was

not boxing, but a cruel and calculated assault of a man who assumed that his own impotence gave him the right to insult a better man. the police officer suffered four broken ribs and had temporarily lost his vision in one eye besides a very badly twisted right knee. while being beaten up, he knew that the assailant had planned not to kill him, but take him to the very verge of death. achilles had stood over the beaten man. he was not in the least way, disturbed. he had just rendered justice to a man who had spoken the untruth in a most disdainful way. she was never told as to why he beat the cop but she had figured it herself. it was not his turf when he faced the cameras in a small stuffy room with powerful lights. he was sweaty but his face suggested an unusual calm reserved for pseudo politicos. people were scared by it only because they knew it to be the real thing. he was to promote a new line of sports sun-glasses. except for the fact that one of the shades wore his face, there was no mention of the glasses at all. they were a huge hit. the interview had taken a nasty turn when a journalist who had never written anything beyond movie gossip had asked as to why he had not been able to defend his title by knocking out the opponent in the first round. achilles smiled and most spontaneously replied that he could, but he did not as it was his dream come true to have a fat lazy journalist who had never beaten anyone in the world except his wife and his child, to ask really dumb questions which in no way was related to either boxing as a sport or him as a boxer. everyone present in the hall acted as if he had not spoken the words. he started laughing. it was a laugh that had silenced even the eternal buzz of the photographers. it was a bright morning which had left the beach empty save a few couples who were oblivious to the sun. she loved the sun and the sea. she was unmindful of the heat and the salty breeze as she was a statue with huge dark shades for a long time. he was sitting by her. he knew that this would make a perfect cover-story for any tabloid, but he couldn’t have cared less. she was by him, and that was all that counted. whenever they were together, they played chess. and sometimes they discussed fishing and different cooking styles of preparing fish. they avoided three topics when they were together – boxing, tomorrow and love. for both of them, the three were one and the same. she knew that he was her pass to a better life. he knew that she was the woman he would choose to live with. they did not speak about anything else to each other. the one match when he had lost his temper was not a professional bout. he was irked by the rather rash things that the opponent had spoken to him. it was his second year in the professional circuits and he was not used to people abusing him with absurd lies that were not even related to him or boxing. it was one thing that he never got used to. in that fundraiser which he regretted for accepting to fight, he beat up a guy after knocking him out. he was not disqualified as the opponent had fallen back on the ropes and it could not be clearly found if he had lost consciousness before or after falling back. the audience looked upon in silenced horror as they had figured that the man was cold as a fish and the referee was not angled right to see it. there were no judges for the supposedly friendly match. he won by a ko that was figured after the bell. the man had suffered multiple fractures in the jaw and around the eye. he had torn too many tendons to count and he never returned to a ring in his life. it was a disgusted fan who asked him if he had done it intentionally. he paused contemplatively for a moment and then replied him with a

deliberate yes. he smiled very slowly. it was a moment of absolute silence as the city slept even as she wailed out his real name. it was the first time she had spoken the name – and the only time. he stood at the door and waited. it was no human cry that he had heard as she had not moved from where she had been sitting. the evening had started out with a most engaging game of chess. the game never ended with every move being matched with brilliance as they battled in the mind than on the board. they left the game unfinished. he suddenly slipped into a sullen mood. he was never the temperamental kind and it was a surprise when he shouted calling her a conniving bitch. he accused her of trying to make him internalize her decision as his own. he stood looking into her glassy eyes of model beauty. he caught a distinct gleam in her pupil and broke into laughter as he saw that she had been waiting for the moment. he was silent for a few moments before nodding his head slowly. i see, he said, i would rather leave then. but he just stood there with his one hand on his hip while taking the other to his forehead. she did not move an inch. he pounced quickly on her and grabbed her by her hair and pulled back her head. to his surprise, he was the one who felt weak. he was breathing hard as he stared intently into her wide expressionless eyes. her lips were pursed together and her whole body was stiff in his hands as if she was restraining something within her. he bent lower pulling her head further back and closed his eyes as he hovered just above her neck. his other hand had encircled her. he had his left foot on the couch with most of his weight gently balanced on his toes and partly on her soft self. he whimpered unconsciously as he realized that he had been holding his breath for some time now. he opened his eyes and his face showed a mixture of confusion, embarrassment and longing. he stood in front of her after he released her from his clutch for a full silent moment and started walking towards the door. he felt very lonely in that blackness. this is strange, he told himself. he had never felt the need for anyone to be present. it was a terrible moment when he realized that he was being distanced from himself. a distant voice was saying something. it was a vague voice with a lot of external disturbances. the voice was trying to communicate to him. he only knew that the meaning intended by the voice was not the same as the words it was telling him. he paused for a moment. they were not words. they were numbers. six… seven… a bright flash of light hit him with a force that was very physical. an extremely dominant pain filled his head and he tasted a salty-sour liquid in his mouth. he smelled something very pungent. eight… suddenly everything came back to him. the memories recollected in a time duration that was not meant to load that many thoughts were worse than the pain of the body. the match, he whispered to himself. i must get up. nine… he tried pushing himself off the mat. he knew he could do it. it was not his opponent’s superiority that had dropped him to the canvas, but his own mistakes. he recalled that extremely ambitious wrong arm hook which had him drop guard at both the face and the chest at the same time. he was on his knees as the referee hesitated to call the last count. it was just the first round of the match with a few more seconds to go and the referee did not want to call off what would surely be an epic battle. i should not have let his bob and weave fool me that he would back off till the end of the round, he told himself. god, this is the most embarrassing mistake i have made in a ring. i must have taken it to him the very moment, he shouted out aloud as much as he could through the mouth-piece. he was standing with cuts on his cheek and temple. by the looks of it, he had definitely broken his nose. chunks

of flesh were hanging loose from his jaw. the referee, the opponent and the crowd waited motionless, looking on in a hushed moment. it was the sound of the bell that brought back any semblance of normalcy to those moments. the opponent took a while longer than usual to turn and go back to his corner. achilles stood tall with a side long glance at the crowd before he moved. the white-flash of the cameras were all around the arena as if the winner of the bout had just been announced. the match was won at that moment when the bloodied achilles walked proud and erect. the graphic scene of achilles spitting out blood along with the mouth-piece to the mat haunted everyone for many days to come. it was not the brutality of the beating that had shaken everyone, but his unintentional indifference to it. he came back in the third round to knock the opponent out with what was considered by many as the hardest punch they had ever seen. those nine seconds were all the time he had spent down on the mat in his entire career. she murmured as she readjusted herself in the bed. she lay with her hand around his neck, carefully placed that it looked casual. he was awake and was taking a whiff of her sweetness as he breathed through her hair that was splashed all over his face. he had achieved everything he could ever want and he knew it. he was a famous man, a powerful man, a rich man; but none of these facts impressed him as the fact he was a man. he could taste the love that she had for him in all the moments they had spent together. boxing was a sport of great glory even if it were in the smallest of circuits. he was no world champion but he was as good as any. he would be made to make a few tough decisions soon. she would want him to give up something that she could never gain. possibly that moment not happen. but he wanted no illusions clouding him. he looked at the silhouette of her body that was casually sprawled against him. he would miss her if he had to let her go. contrary to what was believed of him, he was a one-woman man and she was the one. they were getting nowhere sitting across that table sipping that endless cup of coffee. achilles spoke as if the issue was farthest removed from him while the lawyer spoke as if his life depended on the outcome of the negotiation. achilles would lose his entire career if the deal was not done. the lawyer would still be paid his due immaterial of the result. the meeting was even unnecessary as the situation they were discussing was highly unlikely. the second largest share-holder in the boxing promotions firm was thoroughly convinced that he should move up the weight class to bring more income to the company. she had not spoken a word about it to him, as she had known better. he would earn money in any weight class as long as he fought like himself. the lawyer was talking about the emotional surprise value and the anticipatory rise in the audience if he jumped a weight class. the champion fighter stood the man as a prize bull would stand a fly about its face. at the end of an emphatic three-hour presentation, the lawyer was convinced that no one could think otherwise after him giving the reasons for the shift with so much statistical data. achilles did not even think for a moment before saying no. he hated meeting the fans. he knew that it was the interest that those people had in him that had generated so much of fame and money to him, but still he could not internalize the fact that a whole class of people were just waiting for greatness to emanate from outside for their gratification. they were almost always the same people who had very decidedly given up the activity they glorified as impossible. he hated them as they never had a face. they were an amalgam of nothingness whose opinions and thoughts

were manufactured by another person who retained the safety blanket of anonymity. it was one of those lowly creatures who had shouted out asking him to fight the heavyweight champion. in the months that followed, fight the champ had become the chant that had followed him everywhere. “you know that my company would be in complete jeopardy if you quit.” she spoke with her voice level. his eyes gazing at a distance, he stood with one hand in the pocket. she was not sure if he had paid any attention to what she had been talking about. it was a while before his eyes rested on her. he smiled looking at the desperation in her eyes. he suggested that she have a drink of water before she exploded. he sat down at a corner of the sofa opposite to her. he took a month-old magazine from the table and leafed through it not very particularly before stopping abruptly to look up saying, “make me an offer that i can’t refuse.” she knew the implications of the game he was trying to trap her into. she was frustrated and would have killed him if he was not her company’s future. “stop playing games with me!” she said in a very unsure voice. she realized her mistake even as she was saying the words as his face became a cold marble and the words came like sharp icicles, “you know better than that. there’s a big hole in your plan and don’t pretend not seeing it. you know how it works, it has always been pound-for-pound, and always will be.” his voice lost its coldness, if only for a moment, when he said, “and… i do not want you to be hurt. it is not easy, for anyone.” he faltered for just a moment before she replied without minding the teary edge to her voice, “but… but you cannot leave me. you can not go leaving me alone.” the desperation made the voice tremble but she knew that something was going to happen soon. she was a very powerful woman, but that did not change the dynamics of an equation where she had a whole industry working against her. they wanted to oust her because she was a woman. but that was the last thing they would ever say to her face. she walked on the edge of a knife and at every turn she was out-bid by some impotent loser who just had more money than herself. setting up a boxing tourney was more than making money. it was an art form of orchestrating a tense event whose outcome no one knew. it needed a delicate balance of power, placement and an eye for details. something, she always added, that only a woman could possess in full. she never dealt the world in its terms. she fought on her own. after a series of tragedies that included a break up with her long time companion and the death of her father came a sudden ray of light in the form of a young boxer. she was twenty six years then, lonely at the peak of her life. she had never felt a feeling as intense as she felt when she watched him fight, when she watched him. he could take her away from all this drudgery. he could put an end to all her troubles and the price she had to pay; she was only too willing to. things would be better in the course of time with such a boxer being a part of the promotion. and maybe later they could… she never completed the thought. achilles had always fought people much stronger than he. he was ten years old when he had beaten up a fourteen year old who was clearly two heads taller. he did not depend on his physical prowess to beat the other man. nor did he calculate the amount of punishment that each of his hits were supposed to inflict. he just went forth and was one with the force of the punch. he struck, not with frenzy but with a passion that oft-doubted for its precision. he knew he could do it. and that was exactly what he did. he was

eighteen when he went to a local gym to get trained as a boxer. the extremely skeptical trainer was not initially impressed by the aloofness of the boy. the boy did not have an exceptional body or much money but he kept at practice with meticulous patience. the more seasoned boxers of the gym thought that they could use him as their punching bag. he only defended his way through those sessions, but the opponents just tired out. he knocked out his first man in the seventh week during a practice bout. that man was heavier than he by twenty kilos. a well placed punch to the neck knocked him flat out. he never was worried about fighting people from a higher weight class. he only did not feel it fair as his own lightness gave him an advantage of quicker movement. he was not the stickler for rules, nor was he an altruist; he just wanted to meet people on equitable terms with himself. they had never spoken about their past. that evening on the top of the fort they stood in silence as they watched the dichotomy between the historic mystery behind them and the modern buzz of the vehicles at the foot of the hills. he spoke in an unusually deep voice that suggested some emotion, “life gives us signs of the choices that we had once made. maybe we just choose to read a few while ignoring others.” she did not know the context of what he was saying, but she understood the depth of the moment. she moved closer to him and placed her palm over his hand and then gently gripped him by the wrist. the darkened evening could not hide the tears glistening in his eyes “do you know that achilles had a last chance for normalcy? his mother asked him not to go to the war. his shield depicted all those things he had given up – the oxen, the farms, the merry-making life… but he chose to fight. i had to choose too… and…” his voice had dropped to a whisper by the last words and she knew that he was at his weakest moment. they stood in a loose embrace that could not tell who was leaning on whom. he took her fingers to his lip and gently kissed them. she spoke completing his meaning in a low voice, “and you are the only thing of value i have got in the dark road i decided to travel.” the night was a medicine to a hurt that was never theirs. great moments happen in the most mundane settings. it is the greatness of the moment that elevated everything attached to it to immortality. it was one such moment when he was walking into a premiere show of a movie with her. in the mob of fans that had gathered around the entrance was a strange looking woman holding a placard saying, ‘they don’t want you to win.’ he stopped in his tracks as he realized that the words were written for him. everything fell into place and the weight of the world instantly cleared off his shoulders. she might have been some crazy woman who was just jealous of other people’s success but he believed in the meaning that the words conveyed. he believed that the words had a meaning. he smiled and shook her hands and found her smiling in return. to the next journalist he met on the way, he said with a lot of fake energy that he had decided to move up the weight class. he would ideally be challenging the heavyweight champion in a few months’ time. he walked in ever so calmly after making a very strong statement. it was to a very worthy opponent that he had vacated his title to. in his last match in the light heavyweight category he faced a young man who spent more time down on the mat than fighting. there was nothing exceptional in his style nor was he extraordinarily powerful. it was his heart that had made him the top contender for the title. he had beaten

every man by sheer longevity. he did not have even a single knockout in his record after seventeen matches. but he also did not have a single defeat. he had outlasted every man who stood between him and greatness. achilles was impressed by the boy the moment he set his eyes on him. it was one of those rare faces that brought a smile without any intent of ridicule. the fight lasted for eleven rounds. that was the longest anyone had stood against achilles. it took him three clean punches to knock the living daylights out of the boy. the boy was dropped twelve times to the mat of which four were no ordinary pushto-floor hits, but he had come back every single time. achilles never felt bad for knocking anyone out. it was his way of acknowledging the other person’s presence in the ring. after being declared the winner following the ten-count, achilles did not move to his corner. he stood there and kept looking at the boy. the boy was dazed but still saw that achilles was looking at him. achilles smiled at the boy before sitting by his corner. once the boy was back on his legs, he approached achilles. achilles stood up and offered his hand and the boy jumped and hugged him. the very next day, the newspapers printed that achilles had vacated the title. it was his sixth year in professional boxing. she had started accusing him of intending to leave her shortly after he renewed his contract with her company. he had signed in as a heavyweight and had cut down on the numbers of fights that he was scheduled to have. she sometimes felt as if he had suddenly gained some strange superior knowledge that separated them. all the distress signals that had lately clouded him were increasingly absent. he started winning matches in his regular style of two-round kos again. there was an intermittent patch where he had to sustain the match till a ten-round decision was declared. he appeared more youthful than ever. she started growing increasingly aware of the fact that she was four years his senior. she sometimes cried when she was alone. she felt that she was gradually growing weak. it was a beautiful evening when he had found her with a knife poised dangerously behind him. he was startled, not at the implication of the knife, but at the stupidity of him not explaining what was happening. he apologized to her and started talking to her completely oblivious of the knife or its intentions. twenty minutes later, she had thrown the knife and was in his arms, crying with relief. she understood. he kissed her on her forehead and apologized for not explaining. it was the placard, he told her. that was the key to our salvation. she cried and laughed as she shared his knowledge. they would get married in two years’ time. she knew that they were going to vanish and it was only a matter of time before they did. his first ten-round decision had been a tribute to one of his childhood heroes on a comeback path. though he would never throw a fight for anyone, he knew that he could at least save an embarrassment of a knockout for the great man. it was his eleventh fight. but a real ten-rounder came in the fifth year, just a while before he stepped up in the weight class. a lot of confusion was fresh in his mind about his life and it rightly reflected on the ring. he did not practice any lesser, nor was his focus deterred in anyway. it just seemed that he had lost all that desire to be one with perfection. he did not find an opponent worthy of landing a ko punch. he wondered if boxing was what he wanted to do, for it seemed purposeless at times. five facile wins piled up one after the other where he had just kept avoiding punches and landed his own jabs to gain points. he was the audience’s killjoy, robbing them of any chance of excitement. that thought gave him a bit of pleasure. they did not deserve to watch the process of perfection. all these thoughts

were immediately before the time when he discovered that perfection was always for its own sake. it was a rollercoaster rite of passage for her when she redeemed herself. reassurance from him was only a distant promise of perfect bliss, but she knew that she had to win her own battle within her. she had taken off from her soul when she had accepted to fight in the terms dictated by the world. she had forsaken the passionate woman for a corporate shadow. she was not herself when she signed contracts rather than trusting people on their word. she hated the times when she had to think of numbers than people. he walked in with a world of promise to both the half-life she was living and the real self she had buried within her. her life became extremely distasteful when she realized that she had to give up one for the other. it was only when she realized that only one of the choices would let him be with her at all, did the conflict resolve. she could have millions but if she was not happy, it amounted to nothing. it took a long time to accept the changes though. she would sell her boxing promotions when he announced his retirement. they would fake a road accident death and retire to a faraway place where achilles was just a greek hero. but the passion they had for living would never diminish. it was his third match in the heavyweight class that had gone into the tenth round. the opponent was an established former champion who was eyeing a second reign of the title. though he was not as quick as the younger man, he was technically sound – probably the best man achilles had faced in his entire career. since the winner of the bout would be given a title shot in the months to come, all eyes were upon the match. the champion himself was present at the ringside. in a most grueling sixth round, achilles dropped the tough opponent who managed to get up before the end of the count. it took a lot of energy and effort to tire the opponent out before an equally tired achilles landed a square cross on his jaw knocking him out. the arena exploded into a standing ovation for both the warriors. it was a scared and therefore angry champion who stepped into the ring and challenged achilles for a non-title match that same night. despite his team advising against it, achilles accepted the challenge. though he had not practiced, the fresh champion was in the more advantageous position. he changed into boxing gear and fifteen minutes later, the audience saw achilles in the middle of the ring for another fight. physically he was only a shadow of what he usually was, with cuts on his face and the body drooping a bit. the body was weak, but the mind was willing. the audience knew that he would do it by the look in his eyes. they still shone as they did in the first round of the previous match. to think about it, the deep-set eyes had never lost their shine throughout his career. by the time the first round ended, the champion’s strategy of trying to tire achilles out was evident. in a dull second round, the champ looked like a gorilla attempting a ballet dance, as he kept hopping around the ring. achilles was getting slower by each passing round and the audience waited with bated breath for the inevitable, achilles’ first defeat. there was a long pause before an obscure voice stood shouting a line that would be immortal ‘down he goes! down he goes!’ in the middle of the ring stood achilles over the body of the champion who laid there knocked out senseless. in a rare moment of joy that he usually left unsaid, he banged the gloved right hand against his chest before raising it high in the air. it was the ninth round, making it the longest night he had spent in the ring. that match was not officially fixed and the record books never talked about it; nor did he.

he opted not to have a background track at all as he made his ring entry. somehow it never struck him true. more importantly, he did not find a song that reflected his essence. he always wore black trunks that matched his gloves. he loved fruits and hated lawyers. sometimes, he played the violin. he loved spending time in the water. he loved her even more. “and you did this for me?” she was bedazzled at that strokes that embellished that wall. they were rough charcoal streaks that were unrelated to each other. but she knew what she saw. she loved what she knew. it had a distant semblance to a figure of a woman with her hands poised to strike. the wall-painting’s hands were fisted with one hand by the face with another by the chest. the face did not have distinct features. it was the way the figure had been crafted that struck her. it was the spirit of a fighter captured for eternity. her eyes had tears that outshone the diamond stud on her ear. she knew the meaning of that which was before her. she did not believe in god, but she saw a glimpse of her soul and its peace. he stepped behind her and slid his arms around her waist. she held on to his hands as if for support. he put his face on her shoulder and gently whispered in her ears, “to the greatest fighter i have ever met.” she smiled. she turned and kissed him. it was worth it. at the end of the day, the battle was worth fighting. “i am a hero!” he bellowed without voicing it. that was his greatest fight not because of the opponent, but despite the opponent. the 42nd official match of his career was a bout for the heavyweight title. three more victorious bouts would make him the champion. there would be four successful title defenses before he would retire. but no one could have fought the way he did that night. the champion was clueless as achilles was comfortable squaring out any style of attack that he tried to adapt. achilles had come there to win and it was evident he would. but there was something unusual about that night. he was playing with his prey before hunting it down. he was cruel with his crosses and punished with each of the hook to the sides. no one had seen a better footwork from any boxer than from him on that night. he fought like a god. he fought like god. the crowd looked on with amazement as he displayed exceptional skill and astounding style. he looked at the crowd after executing a well placed wrong arm upper-cut. they did not want him to win. he smiled as the ten-count, the ring, the victory and the opponent became things of a distant past to him. he was all alone. he loved it. his image screamed a different phrase this time, “i am the hero!” *** in memory of rocky marciano. *** ‘there are no winners or losers in life; just fighters and quitters.’