#invocation.

   The gym is under new management, apparently, because the sign has changed.  ACHILLIFTING.  What a name.  You like a good pun, Patroclus, but this doesn’t qualify for the descriptor ‘good,’ and anyway, it’s a little bit on the nose.

   “Ugh.”

   Patroclus works the cork out of half a bottle of red wine, takes a pull, and hands it over.  Glasses are for the weak and they won’t need them where they’re going.  The opening credits shimmer onto the screen.

   He hates this movie.

   It’s a big city, but everyone has their corners, and sooner or later you begin to recognize the other people who frequent yours.  In this case, Patroclus mostly recognizes the dog that sits patiently outside every time the scruffy-looking man comes in for a coffee.

   “It’s hard to tell from your face which of us had the better week.”

   And therefore, who should buy the first round, not that it doesn’t probably roughly even out over time.  

   The dogs are scattered through their part of the camp, lying panting on the sands now that it’s begun to get dark and the men have mostly stopped milling around.  Patroclus, on the other hand, has duties after the fighting is over, and the bodies have been dragged from the battlefields already; he kneels by the firepit, stirring the flames to life, but still recognizes the face in the half-light through the brightness of it, and raises a hand in greeting.