A Memory of Wind

By rachel swirsky

illustration by sam weber

Page 1 of 17

After Helen and her lover Paris fled to Troy, her husband King Menelaus called his allies to war. Under the leadership of King Agamemnon, the allies met in the harbor at Aulis. They prepared to sail for Troy, but they could not depart, for there was no wind.

Kings Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus consulted with Calchas, a priest of Artemis, who revealed that the angered goddess was balking their departure. The kings asked Calchas how they might convince Artemis to grant them a wind. He answered that she would only relent after King Agamemnon brought his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to Aulis and sacrificed her to the goddess.

* * *

I began turning into wind the moment that you promised me to Artemis.

Before I woke, I lost the flavor of rancid oil and the shade of green that flushes new leaves. They slipped from me, and became gentle breezes that would later weave themselves into the strength of my gale. Between the first and second beats of my lashes, I also lost the grunt of goats being led to slaughter, and the roughness of wool against calloused fingertips, and the scent of figs simmering in honey wine.

Around me, the other palace girls slept fitfully, tossing and grumbling through the dry summer heat. I stumbled to my feet and fled down the corridor, my footsteps falling smooth against the cool, painted clay. As I walked, the sensation of the floor blew away from me, too. It was as if I stood on nothing.

I forgot the way to my mother’s rooms. I decided to visit Orestes instead. I also forgot how to find him. I paced bright corridors, searching. A male servant saw me, and woke a male slave, who woke a female slave, who roused herself and approached me, bleary-eyed, mumbling. “What’s wrong, Lady Iphigenia? What do you require?”

I had no answers.

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25 comments

1. Irene
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 03, 2009 08:35am EST

This is _such_ a haunting and beautiful story. I'm looking forward to reading it many more times.

2. tapsi
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 03, 2009 10:01am EST

Truly beautiful.

3. Rikka
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 03, 2009 12:56pm EST

lyrical and fully epic in its own right, haunting is definitely the right word to describe this...

4. spanishviolet
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 03, 2009 10:30pm EST

Unforgettable. I loved reading this.

5. welltemperedwriter
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday November 04, 2009 12:56am EST

This is amazing. I love this myth and this is an incredibly well-done interpretation of it.

6. RobMRobM
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday November 04, 2009 07:55am EST

Very well done story - and the illustation was beautiful as well.

7. slikz21
VIEW ALL BY · Thursday November 05, 2009 07:20pm EST

Thank you very much, this was a great read.

On a similar note, it would be interesting to see your takes on Andromache, Penelope, or Lavinia for example. What always strikes me when reading mythology is the brevity when characters like Iphigenia are mentioned - if they are mentioned at all.

And I'm definitely going to agree with the description of haunting: "I need you to remember me for me." Enough said.

8. gorillo
Thursday November 05, 2009 07:22pm EST

that was incredible.

9. Planeswalker
Friday November 06, 2009 03:55am EST

That story was beautiful. Thank you. As is the lady in the illustration.

10. Leotrak
VIEW ALL BY · Friday November 06, 2009 05:09am EST

Wow... Just... Wow. Very impressive read.

11. Asakiyume
VIEW ALL BY · Friday November 06, 2009 08:05am EST

This was a **beautiful** story. I loved the way you wove the storytelling. Loved the way things slipped away from Iphigenia. Loved her words right at the end, also her words to Orestes.

All the characters--Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Helen--wonderfully rich.

12. Chris Furst
Friday November 06, 2009 11:56am EST

Beautiful story!

13. Gidget
Friday November 06, 2009 01:20pm EST

slikz21, you should read Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, but yes, this story is indeed haunting and well-written.

14. Kdah
Friday November 06, 2009 07:11pm EST

Haunting and well written it may be, but it's not science fiction or fantasy. Why is it here?

15. HarlequinZane
Friday November 06, 2009 10:00pm EST

Kdah - I'd venture that it falls under fantasy, what with sentient wind and all. It's a mythic re-write, which is a genre of fantasy.

The story is beautiful, haunting and rich. It's a real gift. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

16. ladakhdress
VIEW ALL BY · Saturday November 07, 2009 03:12am EST

Thank you so much for such a great story. It really took my boredom away.

17. Samantha R.
Tuesday November 10, 2009 06:21pm EST

That was wonderful. Thank you!

18. Threephase
Wednesday November 11, 2009 07:49pm EST

Wow. That was truly gripping. I was just reading along until the 4th part, and suddenly I just KNEW that I was going to have to finish it all, right through to part 17, immediately.

Thank you for a wonderful read!

19. bookwench
Thursday November 12, 2009 02:01am EST

This is amazing... I wanted to cry, reading it. Thank you.

20. BamaCLM
Thursday November 12, 2009 09:03pm EST

Haunting is indeed the word. This story has haunted me since I first read it.

Beautifully written.

21. Frodoo
VIEW ALL BY · Sunday November 15, 2009 07:16am EST

I always wonder how someone can write tragic stories. How someone can kill a character so beautifully created from their thoughts. but I still read them and some of them do wet my eyes. and yours is one such. really beautifully written. but I really wonder how could you kill a character as beautiful as Iphigenia. or is it that some stories and characters are meant to be so. does sadness and death only can make few stories complete? I always had this question but could never ask any. So thought of asking you because Iphigenia is really one of those characters which I liked so much that I did not like being killed in the end.

22. Rachel S.
Monday November 16, 2009 05:56pm EST

Thank you, everyone, for the kind comments.

Frodoo, you seemed to be asking me specifically, so I thought I'd respond. I apologize if it's out of place:

"but I really wonder how could you kill a character as beautiful as Iphigenia. or is it that some stories and characters are meant to be so. does sadness and death only can make few stories complete?"

Just answering for myself -- this story is based, of course, on the old stories about the Trojan war. All we really know about Iphigenia is her death. The old stories imagine her as incidental. Who she was, what she thought and said and did and felt, didn't really matter to those writers. They were interested in how her father felt about killing her.

So, to answer your question, yes I think it's true that some stories are meant to be so. In this case, Iphigenia's death is the beginning (of my impulse to write) and the end (of almost everything we know about her from traditional sources). But I wanted to imagine her as more than just her death, to create a middle for her story.

23. Robotech_Master
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 17, 2009 12:13pm EST

Is there any way I can see this in the form of a single page, so I can easily convert it to read on my iPod Touch?

24. Hapalochlaena
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 17, 2009 08:36pm EST

I'm not familiar with the iPod Touch, but you can download this story in PDF, HTML, EPUB and MOBI formats by clicking on DOWNLOAD in the sidebar.

25. Frodoo
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday November 18, 2009 11:18pm EST

It is definetly true that "A memory of wind" is more than just an end of a person. I thought it was purely fictional and expected a happy ending(its just subjective as i usually like the happy ending stories). Your style of writing really makes the reader get involved into it. I look forward to read one such happy story.