It’s not so much a room as it is a cell. 

It’s not so much a cell as it is a box. 

It might not even be real. 

It might be the only thing keeping him alive. 

Perhaps, he thinks – his eyes burning as they slip closed, the wine-dark sea growing ever darker as he sinks – perhaps it’s his spirit trapped in his body.

He almost hopes it isn’t – it might make his death take longer, stretch out for as long as the sea is deep, and he is so tired. The crashing of waves is muffled above his head, he’s cold and growing colder, and maybe he shouldn’t have given that cyclops his full name and home address. That was a bad idea – which he does have on occasion, with spectacularly bad timing – but glory called. No point in glory if you die before you can tell anyone, and everyone who saw it is right there in the water with you. No one but the gods. 

He doesn’t bother praying. This was the work of gods, so his god can’t save him now. 

He thinks about Penelope, Telemachus, and then he is in 

the room, 

the cell, 

the box, 

the tomb, 

that may or may not be inside him. 

It almost looks like the inside of that gods-damned horse. Or below deck of his ship. Or it would be, if there was anyone else here. But he is alone. 

What might be the belly or the hull under his feet heaves, and his memories start filtering back in, dripping like a sprung leak. 

The gods are angry.

His ship went down. 

His men are dead. 

It’s his fault. 

Athena isn’t here.

It – the room, cell, box, tomb, sepulcher –

tilts, the crash of waves loud against its walls and he can hear all his names cried out, 

man of pain man of many faces nobody son of laertes father of telemachus king of ithaca ruin of ilium liar thief hero traitor 

       the sufferer 

       the wanderer 

odysseus

over and over, by his crew that he killed, by the Trojan men and women and children he slaughtered, by Palamedes, Laertes, Anticlea, Penelope, the triplicate wailings of Iphigenia, baby Astyanax, baby Telemachus.

Something hammers on the outside of his cage, in harmony with the waves, he slams his fists on the inside – it’s just as desperate to get in as he is to get out. If he can escape, he can go home, and eventuallyeventuallyeventuallyeventually, he will make it home.

He thinks about the olive trunk marriage bed 

and her loom propped against the wall 

and the screaming of a new-born son as 

the wood splinters under his fist, water rising around his ankles 

and he’s just as scared as he is tired 

and he hopes his body will wash up somewhere so she can have piece of mind, so they can put him to rest 

and move on 

and be happy, 

and maybe someone who remembers him will help them, 

and gods, 

Telemachus must be so tall now–

And then he wakes up. He is face down in the sand with salt in his mouth and a shadow blocking the sun, and perhaps, he thinks, he’s in another room. 

The roomcellboxcagetombsepulcher’s name is Calypso.