{Ogygia, 21st of June 2006}
As Calypso and I meandered through her garden, I found myself jumping from shadow to shadow like some demented game of hopscotch.
Each time I touched a new shadow, I felt a little piece of myself click back into place, one of the billions maybe even trillions of shards I had separated into fusing with me once more.
But here's the kicker: every new shadow I claimed came with a side order of feelings. And let me tell you, plants have a lot more going on emotionally than you'd think. That daffodil over there? Total drama queen. The oak tree? Going through a midlife crisis. And don't even get me started on the venus flytrap's abandonment issues.
It was all getting to be a bit much, like trying to listen to a hundred radio stations at once. In Ancient Greek. So, I did what any sane person-turned-shadow would do: I focused on the only full soul on this crazy island, Calypso's.
"Are you okay?" Calypso's voice cut through my internal chaos. "Your form is rippling."
I realized I probably looked like a shadow having a seizure. Real smooth, Ozzy.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied, because apparently, even as a shadow, I still had my pride. "Just... stretching."
Calypso raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. "It's getting late," she said. "Maybe we should head back to my place."
"Your place?" I asked, trying (and failing) to keep the nervousness out of my voice. "Is that like... a cave? A palace? A really fancy treehouse?"
She laughed, a sound that made the flowers around us perk up. Show-offs. "You'll see," she said with a wink. "Come on, shadow boy."
As we started our trek back to Calypso's mysterious abode, I couldn't help but notice how the island seemed to change with the setting sun. The colors became more muted, the shadows (my other mes, I guess) grew longer, and the air took on a slight chill. It was beautiful, in a "I'm-trapped-on-a-magical-island-as-a-shadow" kind of way.
"Hey Calypso," I said, trying to break the silence, "you do know I have to leave right."
Calypso's smile faltered a bit. "Yes," she admitted. "It's your destiny after all."
"Do you really have no clue how I can gain, a body" I said, immediately wanting to kick myself. If I had feet. Which I didn't. Being a shadow is complicated, okay?
"No," she said softly. "Circe would probably know, but my magic simply isn't that good."
Silence fell once more, but it wasn't long before my ADHD brain made me speak up once more,
"Hey Calypso," I said, "if I do get out of here, I'll be sure to come and break you out, okay?"
She was about to reply until a commotion up ahead, seemed to break her train of thought. Three invisible servants were trying to carry what looked like a large vase filled with flowers. Keyword: trying. It was like watching a Three Stooges routine performed by ghosts.
"Careful!" one invisible servant yelped. "Lady Calypso loves these moonlaces!"
"I am being careful!" another retorted. "You're the one tilting it!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
The third servant, apparently the voice of reason (or as reasonable as an invisible, clumsy servant can be), tried to intervene. "Both of you, stop bickering and focus on—"
Too late. The vase tipped, spilling soil, flowers, and water all over the path. And, of course, all over Calypso's pristine white dress.
"Oh no!" all three servants cried in unison.
Calypso, to her credit, didn't lose her cool. She just sighed, like this was a regular occurrence. For all I knew, maybe it was. "It's alright," she said, waving her hand. The Mist swirled around her, and suddenly her dress was spotless again. Show-off.
"We're so sorry, Lady Calypso!" the servants wailed.
"It's fine, really," Calypso assured them. "Just please, try to be more careful next time."
As the servants scrambled to clean up their mess, I had an idea. Maybe I could detach from Calypso's shadow and attach to one of the servants instead? It was worth a shot.
I concentrated, trying to will myself towards the nearest servant. But it was like trying to swim through molasses. Backwards. Uphill. In a snowstorm.
"Uh, Ozzy?" Calypso's voice broke through my concentration. "What are you doing? You look like you're trying to... I don't know, shadow-sneeze or something."
I gave up with a sigh. "I was trying to attach to one of your servants' shadows," I admitted. "No luck, though. Guess I'm stuck with you for now."
"Oh no, how terrible for you," Calypso said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Stuck with a beautiful, immortal goddess on a paradise island. However will you cope?"
"Hey, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound so bad," I laughed, yet I noticed how she had completely forgot to continue our previous conversation, if it had been on purpose I didn't know.
We continued on, leaving the still-apologizing servants behind. The path wound through groves of fruit trees, past bubbling springs, and around massive boulders covered in glowing moss.
"Almost there," Calypso said as we rounded a bend.
And there it was. Calypso's home. I'm not sure what I was expecting – a golden palace, a swanky beach house, maybe a hollowed-out giant clam shell – but it wasn't this.
It was a cave. An honest-to-gods cave. But before you start picturing some dank, bat-infested hole in the ground, let me clarify. This was the kind of cave that would make real estate agents weep with joy.
The entrance was draped with curtains woven from what looked like pure moonlight. Soft, warm light spilled out from inside, and the smell of cinnamon and freshly baked bread wafted towards us. It was homey, cozy, and absolutely not what I'd picture as the dwelling of an immortal goddess.
"Welcome to my humble abode," Calypso said with a grin.
"Humble? This place is amazing!" I exclaimed.
As we entered, I marveled at the interior. It was a single large room, but it somehow managed to feel both spacious and intimate. A loom stood in one corner, a half-finished tapestry shimmering with threads of gold and silver.
Shelves lined the walls, filled with jars of preserves, dried herbs, and what looked like glowing crystals. A large, comfortable-looking bed occupied one alcove, while a crackling fireplace cast dancing shadows across the floor.
"It's not much," Calypso said, suddenly sounding self-conscious, "but it's mine."
"Are you kidding? This place is awesome!" I said.
Calypso laughed, the sound echoing off the cave walls. "I'm glad you like it," she said. "Make yourself at home. Or, well, as at home as a shadow can be, I suppose."
I watched as she moved around the cave, lighting candles and adjusting things here and there. It was strange, seeing this powerful, immortal being doing such mundane tasks. It made her seem more... human, something I kept on forgetting I no longer was.
"So," I said, trying to keep the conversation going, "what do you usually do for fun around here? Besides gardening and cleaning up after clumsy invisible servants, I mean."
Calypso shrugged. "I weave, I sing, I tend to my plants. And when men come too my shore I ask to hear their stories, so Ozzy what is your story?"
"What do you wanna hear first?" I said, to Calypso who now sat at the edge of the bed, her pony tailed hair draping over her shoulder
"Do you guys still have Frank Sinatra," she said. "Hacksaw, once sang some of his songs to me and I really enjoyed them."
"Yeah, we still had him when I was born but my dad told me he passed away a few years ago" I replied.
She nodded, a sad smile on her face. "That's disappointing."
Seeing her sad, I felt slightly down. "Hey," I spoke up. "How about you tell me the songs this Hacksaw guy sang, maybe I can think of another one.
Calypso beamed, a streak of joy coursing through her soul. She quickly made her way to a cupboard, where I could see dozens upon dozens of books. She grabbed one at the very top and soon came back.
I could make out what each of those books were titled, Days with Odysseus, Days with Drake, Days with Hacksaw and like that tens of other names. She quickly opened the diary she had grabbed and began flipping through the pages, before stopping abruptly in one.
"Here, these are the ones that I know."
A list of more than twenty songs all from Frank, were written in the page along with their corresponding lyrics, I honestly wondered how all those letters fit inside the page but I didn't have time for that.
"Let's see. That's life, fly me to the moon, my way, the way you look tonight.... Goddam this Hacksaw guy took all the good ones. Let's see, think Ozzy think."
Soon a song I hadn't seen came into mind, I tried to recall the lyrics and the tune, then I spoke up.
"Don't laugh okay."
"I promise, I won't laugh."
"Promise."
"Promise."
"Good," I said. "It's called, the World we Knew, and don't laugh."
She smiled at me before speaking up, "I already promised that I wouldn't laugh now come on, I wanna hear it."
So I began to sing.
[The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra]
"Over and over I keep going over the world we knew
Once when you walked beside me
That inconceivable, that unbelievable world we knew
When we two were in love"
"And every bright neon sign turned into stars
And the sun and the moon seemed to be ours
Each road that we took turned into gold
But the dream was too much for you to hold"
"Now over and over I keep going over the world we knew
Days when you used to love me"
Calypso seemed to be on the burst of laughing which made me feel embarrassed, making me really wanna stop singing, but as I looked into her soul, I could feel her melancholy, her sadness and so I kept on going, humming the tune as best as I could.
"And every bright neon sign turned into stars
And the sun and the moon seemed to be ours
Each road that we took, it turned into gold
But the dream was too much for you to hold"
"Now over and over I keep going over the world we knew
Days when you used to love me"
"Over and over I keep going over the world we knew"
I looked up at Calypso and instead of seeing her laughing, which was honestly what I expected, she had a small smile spreading across her face.
"Thank you, Ozzy that was wonderful."
As night fell, the cave grew darker, lit only by the flickering fireplace and a few stubborn candles. My shadow form rippled in the diminishing light, stretching and contracting with each flicker of flame.
"I suppose it's time to sleep," Calypso said, stifling a yawn.
"Yeah-h" I stammered aloud. "Goodnight Calypso."
Calypso smiled. "Good night Ozzy and call me Caly."
"Yeah, goodnight Caly."
{Unknown Place, Unknown Time}
I awoke with a shake, something really weird since I had been a shadow the day before, but who knew maybe I was a shadow that could be shaken.
Still looking up, I reaIised I was no longer in Calypso's home, I was being held in the arms of a man – dark slick hair, grey stone-like eyes, light brown skin, and a build that would make Schwarzenegger jealous.
It took me a moment to recognize him, but when I did, I almost had a heart attack. Which would have been impressive considering that I had had it blown apart by Kronos before.
It was Atlas. The same Atlas I had talked to on my final labor, the dude who should have been holding up the entire sky.
But things just got weirder from there. I was no longer a shadow, but I was weirdly small. Like, baby small. And Atlas was looking at me with a gaze so loving it made me want to check if I'd accidentally stepped into a Hallmark movie.
His next words made everything even more surreal...
"My beautiful Calypso."
Oh, Styx.
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