“No. No!” “No. No, wait!” I jolt awake. It was just another nightmare. Another one but, the same one I’ve been having for weeks now. I look over and see Penelope, my wife, sleeping soundly. I hear our son cooing in the next room and the candle on my bedside table told me that it was still dark outside but it was the early morning hours.
I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart, shake off the recurring nightmare and go in to tend to my son. He was born 6 months ago and is growing like a weed! I stand over his bassinet that my father made for me when I was born and smile at him. Telemachus looks back up at me and returns my smile. I pick him up and craddle him close to me. I hold him for a moment before putting him back down. I put a finger to my lips and I go to make him an early breakfast of cow’s milk. Penelope’s milk never came in so we bought a couple of cattle so we could feed Telemachus.
I fixed a horn and cloth for him and returned to feed him. It was just barely day break when Penelope woke and found us watching the sun rise in silence. “Odysseus, is he hungry?” I look up at her with a smile. “Oh. Why didn’t you wake me? It was my turn to feed him.” I just shook my head. Telemachus was still nursing but sleeping at the same time. Penelope walks over to us. “Odysseus, give him to me.” I hand him to her, rise from my chair and walk over to the window. She knows something is wrong when I don’t argue with her and when I stay silent with my words.
“Odysseus?” It wasn’t a question but more along the lines of her pushing for an explanation. I take a deep breath and begin: “I had the nightmare again. Only this time, I was holding someone’s infant son over a wall.” She looks at me in shock. “Did you drop him?” Her bright, blue eyes have darkened and her thin red lips have paled. Almost as if she could pictue what I dreamt. I shake my head. “I don’t know. I woke before anything happened.” Telemachus was now fast asleep and Penelope had returned him to his bed. She wraps her arms around me from behind and places her chin on my shoulder.
“It was just a dream. Albeit, a strange and recurring one but, I don’t think it means anything.” Frustrated, I turn from the window and begin pacing around our small company room. “Odysseus, I didn’t mean it like that.” “I know, I just–I don’t know what to make of it. I have mulled it over and over and over and I come up with no explanation as to why I keep having the dream. I’m actually surprised you slept through my yelling throughout the dream.” She has a puzzled look on her face. “Sweetheart, I am a mother to an infant son. Every time he simply coos in his sleep, I wake to make sure he doesn’t need us. I think I would wake to you screaming from your dreams.”
“Wait. You didn’t hear me?” She shakes her head. Her face full with worry and concern. “Odysseus, what’s wrong?” I begin breathing heavily as I come to the realization that I was screaming in the dream and not in reality. “Odysseus?” I shake my head at her. “You’re right. It’s probably nothing.” She nods her head and I walk to her and enwrap her in a hug. As we stand there in the embrace, I think about the first time we met. Her redish brown hair shone in the sun and her eyes were as blue as the ocean. Her skin had darkened from her time in the sun as a child and she and her friends were playing in a small body of water trying to cool themselves in the Summer sun.
They had just come from the Olympic Games and were flirting over the men they saw when I was caught watching them. Her friends cowered and tried to cover themselves but, Penelope invited me to join them. The water was cold but, refreshing and before I knew it, her friends had left us to our vices. (What if Odysseus DIDN’T kill the infant? To be continued. This story was inspired by Jorge Rivera’s Troy Saga currently on Spotify.)