Odysseus Comes Home
O, to retire in one's own bed!
Are these real tears I shed on the soil of my homeland, or does the ocean yet roil about me? Am I still enthralled by some salty vortex, victim of the Siren’s song whose melody I never outsailed?
How long have we been kept apart, my love, that I no longer know what is real? Are you my Penelope? Home is not the fragrance of almonds, dates and oranges— home is the fragrance of you.
Surely it was you whose melody sang me home, the sweet bird who bore me over mountains that rolled like seas, and seas that rose like mountains.
I have been wind-tossed ‘tween horizons, and wash ashore at last, driftwood in a man’s shape. I am older, bleached and hardened, not the man you knew. In your embrace, I can exhale.
Tell me, Penelope, did you miss me?
Babe, I’m so proud of you!
I gave you space to do your thing and you grew a beard!
Anyway, real quick before you pop off to bed, would you mind looking at the sink in the guest bathroom? It doesn’t shut off all the way. For the past year it’s been, like, drip drip drip.
It’s been hard for Lorenzo to fall asleep when he stays over.
A bed, how it tempts me! I am tested to delirium, still. Should I lay my head down, I may lose another ten years to a cavernous sleep.
The room you speak of, did that not belong to young Telemachus? I ache to see our son— is he near, does he know I’ve returned?
Telly’s on an ice run, Babe. The fridge broke like, two minutes after you left, and we haven’t gotten it fixed, so this is what we do now.
Whoa—! Don’t come in that door.
The slider is off the tracks.
Perhaps the lotus still plays tricks upon me, but it did sound like you spake the name Lorenzo.
Lo-ren-zo… a name I cannot place. So many strange and fancifal appelations have I encountered on my adventures, but his I do not know.
He’s really cool, Babe, he started his own winery! We go back to my days at the Academy. Turns out he’s also a tech whiz, so I asked if he could help hook-up our new 65” color lever, and he agreed.
In fact, after you left, the whole gang stopped by.
My oh my, there is nothing like the comfort of good friends!
It gladdens me to know you found cheer in my absence. How many did you say again?
My exes? No more than 100. But if anything, they were more concerned about you than me. You’ll think this is really sweet, Babe. The first thing they’d always ask me was, “Is Odysseus still alive?”
Model citizens!
Ah, a different take on the suitors and the question of ownership.
An unexpected twist to the tale for sure!