Odysseus in
Wonderland
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I. Zeus’ Fury
The crew had barely left the Isle of Helios Hyperion, yet Odysseus already sensed that all was not
right. His men had just feasted upon – slaughtered and devoured – the pets of a God. And yet
retribution was nowhere in sight. They had yet to encounter diseases, or grief, or even the slightest
bit of melancholy.
On the contrary; Odysseus’ men were dancing, singing, and even talking gaily amongst themselves,
planning for what they should do with all the plunder that they were bound to take while on their
journey.
But all that Odysseus could ever hope to do while they were still in danger was sit in a corner of
the boat, and meditate. Calculate. Think of anything that could help them out of their
predicament.
Was this some new game that the Gods were playing? Tally up all of Odysseus’s wrongdoings? Let
him feel safe for a moment, and then unleash the Hounds of Hades?
Well, Odysseus would not be fooled; he could not be fooled.
It was several hours before anything unusual occurred, and even then, only Odysseus noticed:
They had once been sailing along in optimal conditions; not a cloud in the sky, and the wind was
in their favour. But now, all at once, the winds had begun to pick up, and Odysseus could spot a
grey cloud or two on the horizon, drawing closer and closer to the ship, ever-so-steadily.
Trouble, thought Odysseus.
And sure enough, the two grey clouds that Odysseus had seen became three larger grey clouds,
then six dark grey clouds, then twelve until finally, it had become one large mass of darkness that
could not be overlooked, even by Odysseus’s ignorant men.
“A storm, Odysseus!” shouted one of his men, rather unnecessarily.
Odysseus looked up to the sky, just before the Divine White Lightning struck, and prayed to the
Gods that Death would come swiftly.
II. A Man, A Woman, and Several Bizarre Articles of Clothing
But, when Odysseus finally had enough strength to rouse himself, he found that he was quite alive,
if not altogether in the head.
Odysseus was not drifting along at sea, as he expected to be. Nor was he lying in sand. As far as he
could tell, he wasn’t even wet.
Bemused, Odysseus began to rise to his feet, unsteadily, and began to take in his surroundings. He
was standing in a windowless room of minute size, shrouded in silence. Devoid of life.
But the room itself wasn’t the oddest thing, in Odysseus’ eyes. The oddest oddity of all seemed to
be the clothes that he was wearing. There was some queer black thing around his legs, constricting
them a bit. His shirt matched whatever it was on his legs, and there was some red thing on his
neck that was making him really uncomfortable, and –
“Oh, good, you’re dressed,” said a woman.
Odysseus turned to see her standing in the threshold of a door whose existence he hadn’t been
aware of a moment before.
“And what a snappy dresser you are!” Marveled the woman. Odysseus noticed that her long, dark
hair got in the way of her left eye, and that her robe was the same color as his shirt.
The woman glided to meet Odysseus. She slid her arms around his waist, and stared deeply into
his eyes. “Ready, Markos?” She asked.
“My-” began Odysseus, but the woman cut his speech.
“Ah-ah-ah,” she reprimanded, pressing her finger to his lips. “We don’t have time for chit-chat. We
need you to be in position as quickly as possible, so Lukas will have more time to explain
everything.”
“G-”
“What did I say about the chit-chat?” The woman chastised.
She ignored his attempt to answer her rhetorical question, and straightened his neck-thing.
“Now: I’m going to leave the room soon, and you’ll follow, twenty seconds after me. You’ll go to
the main ballroom – the giant room with music, and people dancing; you can’t miss it – and climb
the stairs up to the balcony. Lukas will be there, but seeing as you haven’t met yet, you’ll whisper
the word ‘Transdactalbibliorhythmicsynthesis’. Hopefully, a man will answer ‘Gesundheit’. That’ll
be Lukas. He’ll tell you everything.”
“Wha –”
“Are you nervous?” Asked the woman, tightening her grip on Odysseus’ waist. “I am. Right now, I
feel like going home, cuddling up with my dog, falling asleep, and wake up not remembering any
of this, but . . . I feel like I have to do it, you know?”
Odysseus opened his mouth to say something, but the woman interrupted him again.
“Oh! I almost forgot; here!” The woman reached around Odysseus’ head, and pulled something
around his eyes. He almost stopped her, but she smelled so nicely, and he felt so weak, and –
“There.” Said the woman, apparently satisfied with herself. She had just put a dark-blue feathered
mask upon Odysseus’s face.
She sighed. “Are you ready?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. As the woman left, she hissed, “twenty seconds!” and disappeared,
leaving Odysseus among the sweet fragrance of her perfume, and now more confused than ever.
III. Gesundheit
The main ballroom of the Palace Élyseés was indeed alive with flowing music, and people dressed
in strange suits and dresses and masks, moving in circles to the song’s rhythm, just as the Sweet-
Smelling woman had said.
Odysseus had made his way through the throng of people, climbed the stairs, and was now on the
balcony, struggling to remember what exactly he was supposed to say.
And he was wracking his brains quite hard, as he knew that there was no hope of ever getting
home, if he could not consult the Omniscient ‘Lukas’.
The man standing near Odysseus had begun to stare at Odysseus, a bit impatiently, tapping his left
foot, and glancing at a strange golden bracelet, as if he was waiting for something …
Transmopolitan . . . Biblaggen . . .Icicles . . .
“TRANSATLANTIC-BIBLOMETRIC-SICILIANS!: shouted Odysseus, suddenly, with fervor.
All at once, one-hundred and eleven pairs of eyes turned around to face him. Odysseus blushed.
“Well, it’s about time! Gesundheit!” said the man nearest Odysseus, in a thick English accent “I
had begun to think that you had deserted us … by the by, the signal is ‘Transdactalbibliorhythmicsynthesis.”
“You’re L–”
“Lukas Merriweather Pompingtonham the third-and-a-half, at your service. And you are Markos, I
presume?”
“Actually –”
“I don’t care if I’m pronouncing your name wrong!” Snapped Lukas, “Let’s just get down to
business.”
Lukas quickly flashed Odysseus some sort of metal instrument, and inquired, “Have you ever
operated a gun before?”
“A what?”
“My god!” Sighed Lukas, “Ellen said that you were a bit incompetent, but I had no idea! This –
(Lukas here showed Odysseus the instrument) is a gun. All you have to do, basically, is aim the
hole at a target, and pull this trigger, over here, and then: BAMZIZLE! It fires!”
“Almost like a bow-and-arrow!” exclaimed Odysseus.
Lukas chuckled.
“Yes, something like that. Now, Your instructions are simple: While Ellen, Harrison, Tyler and I
are ‘relocating’ the President’s riches, you will focus solely on that man, sitting at the big table over
there.”
Lukas was pointing to a lavish wooden table on the far side of the ballroom, at the man that was
sitting in the highest chair.
“That is our man. Léo DuGuerre. Possibly the foulest man in all of France’s history. You’ll be
doing the whole world a favour … Anyway, when you see a big black van pull up just outside that
window, that’ll be your signal to go ahead and open fire upon DuGuerre. Once he’s been
eliminated, jump out of the window, and we’ll be off. Got all that?”
In truth, Odysseus had a great many questions, such as what Frances and Vans and Histories were,
but all in all, he thought he had the basics down.
Actually . . .there was one question sticking out in Odysseus’ mind ….
“If I do this, then will you tell me how to get back home?”
“We’ll do better than that, my friend. We’ll fly you there.”
IV – Odysseus Reborn
Odysseus had been waiting in his spot on the balcony for nearly ten minutes before he realized the
ludicrousness of his situation. He realized that he was in some foreign land where everyone wore
masks and leg-garments, and danced in circles, and possibly knew how to fly, and for some reason,
peculiar people who called him ‘Markos’ had recruited him to kill a man he didn’t know and had
never heard of.
And on top of all that, thought Odysseus, I still have a menacing God on my heels, and a boatful of dead
men that I’ll have to explain once I return to Ithaca . . ..
And Odysseus laughed about that, to himself for a time, until there was no more cheer left inside
his heart.
Evermore painfully, Odysseus waited, and waited, and waited, until finally, out of the corner of his
eye, he spotted a large black object that halted just below the window’s gaze.
His signal, he hoped.
Odysseus stared at the metal object in his hand with wonder – such a gleaning, glistening, gorgeous
object it was. He slid his fingers from the barrel of the gun until he found the trigger, and held
them there, wondering about nearly everything – from the wan way the world worked, to the gaunt
grimness of the ghastly unknown.
Finally, with the lassitude and apathy of an old man who had seen too many tragedies for one
lifetime, Odysseus pulled.
Odysseus’s pulling of the trigger resulted in a loud bang that momentarily stunned Odysseus, but
stunned the President most of all. Permanently.
At that moment, when the entire ballroom was hurled headfirst into anarchy, Odysseus felt the
ecstatic feeling that he had only felt once before, in his entire life; when they had at last sacked the
impenetrable Troy.
“I AM ODYSSEUS!” Roared Odysseus, over the screams of all the women below, grinning. With one
grandiose motion, he ripped off both shirt and pants, threw them to the floor, and began beating
his chest with revived arrogance.
And with great strength, Odysseus leapt out the window. Before hitting bottom – if there had ever
been a bottom to begin with – The whole world went blank.
V – Morpheus, God of Deadly Pain Medicine (And Dreams)
Odysseus aroused slowly, again finding that he was still quite alive, though now wet, and
uncomfortable, lying prone on a beach of rich, white sands.
“Ody-sseus!” Called a voice.
Odysseus turned his head to the side, and saw a man dressed in flowing robes, walking towards
him with lethargic haste.
“Ody-sseus!” Said the man again, languorously. “So you’re finally awake? It’s a pity you’ll be going
back to sleep soon.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Morpheus. It was my brother Hypnos and I who spared you the agony of being conscious as
you drifted. He put you into a deep sleep, and I sent you a vision of the future in the form of a
dream, to appease your troubled mind – and believe you me; it was quite troubled.”
Odysseus chuckled. “I cannot fathom a future such as that which I have witnessed!”
“Ah! But I hand-picked that one specifically for you! You seemed so broken-hearted before, and I
feared that you might give up hope of ever seeing Ithaca again! So I sent you that dream to
invigorate you! So that you would not loose sight of what is truly dear to you!”
“Thank you …?” Said Odysseus.
A pause, then: “Why do I feel so tired if I have been asleep for so long?”
“Ah. That. It is a bit convoluted, but, to put it simply, although the sleep was deep, it was hollow.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just rest; Calypso draws near! And you will need every drop of energy you can store,
for what is to come,” Morpheus added with a sinfully shrewd smile that could nonplus even the
Cheshire Cat.
Calypso and her Maidens did indeed come to Odysseus’ aid hours later. And when he awoke, he
was not aware of the dream, or even Morpheus’s short visit. There was one thing of which he was
absolutely certain, though:
It had been a good rest.