Excerpts from an alternate ending to The Odyssey—found in a trailer, buried under SparkNotes sheets and Cheeto dust
Odysseus lets the sound of the bow snapping back reverberate for a second too long before trying, again and again, to bend it in place. He can’t get it up. We close in on his fingers, all slippy and sweaty. Gross.
Odysseus: I swear this has, like, never happened to me before.
* * *
Someone goes to get the bow and Odysseus kind of leans back. He laughs, but he’s also not letting go.
Suitor #3: Come on, man. Don’t make it like this.
* * *
Odysseus: Wait. Is this the right bow? Yeah, no, this isn’t it. Mine had a little Athena carved into the bottom…oh, nevermind, sorry, it’s there. False alarm, it’s there.
* * *
Odysseus asks the suitors to turn around. He can’t do it if they’re watching.
* * *
Odysseus: Wait, one last try, one last try….Okay, one more try, one more try.
* * *
Oh, I think he’s…crying? Tearing up a little, for sure. Do we…do we pan away?
* * *
Odysseus, in the corner of the room, face pressed to the wall, mumbling but the suitors can still hear him.
Odysseus: It was gonna be epic, like actually fucking epic.
* * *
Asks a suitor if he thinks everyone saw that.
Odysseus: I’m not usually like that.
Suitor #1: For sure, man.
Odysseus: I’ve hardly slept. Last night was a poem. You don’t even /know/ how much lotus I took. And it might be the heat, locked up in here – (calling out) hey, could we chisel out a window or something?!
Suitor #1: (lightly sweating) For sure, man.
Everyone probably saw that.
* * *
Penelope: Please, like, he’s my husband.