Our flesh was joined, once.

Your blood was my blood. My blood was yours.

Curdled screams, purple arms. You entered, wailing, on a black tide of blood and guts. I inhaled your wet hair and clung onto you so tightly I thought you might burst.

But you didn’t. And my life was made.

Now by some cruel joke you stand before me, here in the depths of the underworld. My son! A living, breathing man, ruddy-cheeked and eyes shining. Your chest rises and falls. Blood pulses through your every sinew. Look how the ghosts clamour to catch a glimpse of you.

Yes, things have changed since our last meeting.

Do not look at me. I cannot bear it. I am nought but a shadow. A phantom, a spectre. Nothing. The mere shade of a woman. Of the mother I once was.

Many moons have passed since those nights I spent rubbing my hand across my belly. Tiny feet fluttered against my palm, kicking out from beneath my flesh. I felt alive. I was a god, growing life and bringing it into the world.

Here in the void, there is nothing. I do not taste. I do not smell. I used to lie with my nose pressed to your head, and fall asleep breathing in your fresh, sweet scalp. Your dark curls tickled my chin when I kissed you. Now all that remains are memories, bittersweet torments.

Odysseus. You were always a trickster. What brought you here, to the shades of the underworld? How did you cheat the ferryman and cross the dread Styx?

You are smiling, but your eyes betray fear. That is not the smile I remember so fondly. It is not the grin you flashed me before you set off for Troy. Wretched war! A curse on Apollo! A thousand Greek mothers lost their sons on Trojan soil. For what?

I thought you were one of them, once. In my dreams, I saw you beheaded. An arrow flew through your heart. A horse trampled your skull into the ground. Each flashing nightmare brought me closer to the end, until the grief finally pressed out my last breath.

Yet here you are. Only Heracles before you has crossed the veil that shades us from the living.

What troubles you? Why do you spend so long with Tiresias? Is it prophecy you seek? Come to me. I will tell you about your son, your wife, your kingdom. I keep watch over them. I listen at the altars they worship.

Finally, Tiresias retreats. Surely now you will come and speak with your mother? Yes, he approaches! Oh, to reach out and touch you, just once.

Come here and hold my hand.

No! Not like that. Try again. Ignore their laughter. Again! Again! Why? Why must it be so hard?

My own son flails at his mother’s ghost. Our fingers reach out, only mine melt away. Warm hands sink through spectral dust.

Our flesh was joined, once. Now eternity drives us apart.

– Rachel Ashcroft