Off Course to Elysium

by Amadea Tanner (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Greece

After the island of Kea caught fire, it seemed the gods didn’t want us in the Cyclades. Days before, on the mainland, I may have incited their wrath when I climbed Lycabettus Hill to quaint St. George’s Chapel and declared it had a much greater view than Athena’s Acropolis. In my defense, I wasn’t thinking straight. Somewhere between Plaka and the Parthenon, Eros targeted me with his arrows and I developed an unrequited infatuation with a visiting actor whose first love was ancient history. Not me. We’ll call him Odysseus, because in spite of the fires and floods that followed us south on our journey, he was determined that I should accompany him onwards through the Aegean to the island of Syros. And the venture was an Odyssey indeed. I would have followed him to Elysium, the end of the Earth, the land of perfect happiness, so star-crossed was I. And perhaps we could have sailed there, if the gods hadn’t steered us off course. Zeus kept us on guard with thunderclouds that roiled above an expanse of deep, dark blue—an ominous watery passage between ancient hills. You could hear the sirens calling, though we were assured it was just the echo of the wind. And it was hard to believe the sudden upward spray of sea water was not, in fact, the angry fist of Poseidon conspiring to snatch us, but only a sperm whale on its usual homeward voyage. We had reached the lands of legends, and of a mythology as rich and complex as the age-old history that radiated off the rock face. Something in these waters made it hard to distinguish myth from matter. A timely crack of thunder rumbled just as the loudspeaker announced our destination, reminding us we were in the present. Odysseus lead us into the quaint, crescent harbor and a young waiter lured us to a quiet café. He introduced himself as Little John, though his mischievous tone made us think this was not, in fact, his name. He served us ouzo, a licorice ambrosia—the nectar of the gods. “Syros is beautiful.” Odysseus remarked. “You’re joking me,” was Little John’s reply. “This isn’t Syros. This is Kythnos.” Our instinctive reaction was laughter, thinking of how wrongly we had interpreted the captain. But our good humor turned to horror as Little John cackled, “This is where people come to die.” Had the Fates brought us here for a reason? Was this waiter our Charon, here to paddle us across the river Styx on a one-way trip to the Underworld? This I wondered as he muttered to himself on the way to fetching another round. But his true identity was revealed upon his return. Who could he be but Hermes, the trickster, the messenger? Because he brought with our second round of ouzo what could only be a message from the gods: “You must go far beyond to see what you look for. And you must see how the sun sets in the South. With the sky’s blessing, of course.” So South we would go, at the helm of a new vessel of fate. A curious force directed our gaze towards the horizon, to a point off in the distance that, in these waters, in this place, seemed to be a convergence of past, present, and future. We soon deciphered Hermes’ words. People come to die on Kythnos because it is a popular retirement destination. The sun does not set in the south, but the southernmost islands have the most renowned sunsets in Greece. Hermes himself was likely just a local townsman whose fragmented English we mistook for profundity. But what if we weren’t mistaken? It may have been a millennium since heroes travelled these waters, but these are still the same waters. The only difference between then and now, between myth and the mundane, is that very few people still believe. Could that be what the gods were hinting? Maybe that was Elysium in the distance. And even if our travels wouldn’t take us quite that far, even if we would eventually part ways and return to a mythless life, having the land of perfect happiness in sight was a most exciting possibility.