Quilt Volume 2

as threatening at Odysseus’s shoulder. And so Telemachus quietly crumples his ten-step plan for greatness and falls into line.

Telemachus isn’t sure that his father knows this is Ithaca and not Troy. He isn’t completely sure he himself won’t be slain in the war to come, and there will be a war. Best thing to do is stay by his side and maybe subtly ask for beard advice because they literally have the same genes, so whatever his dad’s doing should work perfectly for him, too, right?

Odysseus left home a father, but he returns a conqueror. This particular conquest will have to be accomplished without an army. He lost all his men on the way back from Troy; blown away by angry winds or eaten by angrier Cyclopes or killed by their own stupidity because they’d rather die trying to get home than keep sailing to shores that aren’t Ithaca’s.

Well, Odysseus was always the cleverest of the bunch, and that’s why he’s standing on the shore, and the rest of them were torn to shreds and strewn across the Mediterranean. He’ll have to explain to their wives why their houses will stay empty, why he took the entire adult male population of Ithaca away with him, and why he returns, not even remembering most of their names. That’s okay, though; they died for king and country, and now he can feel the rocks of Ithaca under his feet for them.

His men’s houses are empty because their wives are irrelevant to the story he’s finally going to draw to a close, and because their sons are in Odysseus’s house trying to woo his wife. Odysseus has slept with his fair share of beautiful women over the past twenty years it’s been a rough couple of decades, okay - but if Penelope desecrated their marriage bed he might shore up the walls with her blood too. After everything he’s been through, what’s one more body? But, no, she’s who he’s coming home to. Her and their bed and their son, who’s had twenty years trying to grow up but can’t even properly grow his father’s beard.

Odysseus steps onto the porch and reaches out to pet the dog he hasn’t seen in twenty years. The crotchety old dog raises its greying muzzle, sees its master, and promptly kicks the bucket—instant death. Muzzle hitting the porch. Rigour mortis starts to set in.

But Odysseus isn’t a seer, so he doesn’t let such omens faze him. He just steps over the dog and opens his front door. Inside, his wife’s suitors are eating dinner. The men in his house, the boys in his house – look up when he enters, chicken legs mid-way to their mouths, faces smeared with grease. They look so ridiculous – so young and vulnerable – that for a brief second, Odysseus considers not killing them all. But then he registers that that is his food, being served by his servants, and the end of the story congeals in blood once more.

Maybe it would be weird to kill so many boys his own son’s age, but he hasn’t been around for a while and honestly has shelved all the father-son feelings for later when his house no longer has a vermin problem. Kid needs to shave, though.

Before long Odysseus is the last one standing, no need for an army. Telemachus is in the corner throwing up. Odysseus wipes the blood from his blade and waits to feel the warm, blanket of home envelop him, but all he feels is the sweat and blood drying slowly on his skin.

He experimentally stabs the corpse closest to him again. No dice. The body kind of looks like 24