It’s not the ruckus of those bastards that stir me awake, nor is it the revelries they concoct every night. Cawing, circling vultures, waiting to pick off of mother. No, it’s not that cacophony that wakes me. It’s the shadows that do.

I never realized how loud silence can be. It whispers to you, creeping from the dark that I feared as a baby, now murmuring in my ears tantalizing songs of stillness. Dragging me out every night, those whispers beckon me out from the warmth of the bed and into the cool breeze of ocean air. The waves hush along with the songs of the shadows, reeling me in.

Shipwrecked, they say. Turned into a pile of bones by cannibals. Drowned. Starved. Murdered. I heard it all from them, every bit of their own versions of my father’s demise. The great Odysseus dead, they spit out and laugh. Sometimes I believe it, for it has grown weary on me the counting of days, weeks, months for the ship to dock back at the port, riddled with arrows or rotted away but still with that same smile that embraces me with all the warmth he can offer. But there is no warmth now, only the chill air. My eyes skim the horizon, dark blue meeting shimmering, deep blue. Black splotches trick my heart, only to reveal rocks instead of masts and sails.

Every night I sit here, waiting.

For what? 

For father. 

He’s dead. 

He’s not. Those stories were just made by drunkards.

 It’s been months. 

So? Only Hermes can travel faster. He promised he would return, and return he will. Mother has fought of those bastards long enough; it cannot be for naught. She weaves and weaves a tapestry of lies in front of them all, watching her for pure entertainment, unaware that in the dead of night she untangles those lies, rids her masterpiece of such treacheries, only to begin the cycle of torment all over again in the morning. And they sit around, vultures with flobby necks.

I grab a stone and chuck it at the ocean, a KER-PLUNK and a heavy burst of sea spraying the sky.

Let it be a message to Poseidon. A warning, even. He dare not leave my father stranded, dare not stray the ship’s course, dare not tempt the riots of the storms and tidal waves. All I ask is for my father back. Let the rest of his crew die, let the ship burn in the distance. Let everything crumble down except for Odysseus the warrior, my father, my mother’s husband.

I try to hold it back, but the tears streak my cheeks. It’s funny how they are as salty as the sea itself, a peculiar tie between man and water. The water attempting to claim back man…

A voice cracks the song of the shadows and oceans. A hand on the shoulder tugs my gaze away from the horizon and into soft, brown eyes. I can’t hear what she is saying, but I soon find myself being carried in mother’s arms, enveloped in the warmth that I longed. I don’t even bother to try and decipher her words; all I do is sink into her embrace, imagining it as father’s.

She lays me down in a makeshift bed, covering me with sheets upon sheets. Warmth, warmth, warmth. Argos nestles in with me, a little ball of fur seeking comfort. From me or the sheets, I’m unsure. But I embrace him nonetheless.

The song of the shadows is drowned out by a more deafening melody. It tears the darkness away, creating motion in the stillness. It’s the mellow hushing and shushing of cloth against cloth. Fingers prying threads away from each other, unbinding an unwanted fate. Sometimes I hear a tear, other times a sigh, but the soothing symphony of sorrow being unraveled continues on without a rest. Keeping the darkness at bay. My eyes are closed, but I feel mother’s gaze ease me back to the cradle of sleep.

Sleep is the only passage to tomorrow. Mother steers us down this path with full attention, pushing onwards, relentlessly. Some days I venture on by her side, and others like today I trudge behind. I wish to be more like mother; prove those bastards wrong. Father will come back. I know because I feel his presence in this warmth, in mother’s unraveling symphony, even in the murmuring of the ocean.

The silence is now silenced, and the shadows lurk away.

Make way for Odysseus, for hope is here to stay.

Let not the Sirens leave me off to stray.

For when tomorrow comes tomorrow,

We shall wait another day.

And we shall wait another day.

And we shall wait another day.

And we shall wait another day...