Laocoön, potter and prophet, is a broken man. He moves fretfully through the streets of Troy, disconnected from the city around him, and from himself.
But there are moments when the gods move through him, and in those moments he lights up from within. It's not a comfortable light. It's a light that comes with a heavy burden. But it's a light all the same.
In one such moment, I watch him sitting in his workshop, drawing as the sirens sound. His pencil moves with feverish intensity, lines cascading down the page like waves. Gradually we see the meaning behind the movement: three figures, framed by three sides of a rectangle.
The prophet holds it up to the glass door of the workshop, his face unreadable. At that moment the gates to Troy swing open, revealing through the glass, above the drawing, three figures, silhouetted against the light, framed in the doorway. Agammemnon, Neoptolemus and Patroclus. He knew they were coming.
Later, as Laocoön shelters behind the bar of the White Cypress, the figures have been daubed in blood. Three wounds, three sacrifices.
As he leaves, Laocoön hands the paper to a woman. She's new to the loop, and I watch, ready to make space as she joins his followers. But she doesn't - she stands very, very still, mask angled towards her gift. Every line of her body speaks of amazement and wonder. It's a beautiful thing, in that moment, to witness the impact of Laocoön's action on her.
In the city, gifts beget gifts, beget gifts.