by Addison Zeller
I came home disguised as a beggar. Only my dog knew me, who had lived so long just to see me one last time, and a servant no disguise could trick. My son was too young to know me; my wife lived in a house where no beggar was admitted. My mother I knew would not greet me because I had seen her in the land of the dead. When I came ashore, I felt what no disguise had imposed on me: my feet were heavy, and my back did hunch, I saw with hazy eyes, colors had changed, I could not get a good look at my dying dog or my servant, and my son’s features were not clear to me—nor would they ever be—nor would I see how my wife had aged, nor fully recall her face, which had already changed in my memory after so many years, so many faces, of women and of girls. At the doors of my house, I learned that the men inside who longed most eagerly to greet me were those who desired to kill me; my son, who desired me in his own way, hoped I would come as an instrument of vengeance—someone strong enough to punish those men for the insults they had heaped on him. Yes, he greeted me as a son should, but in a rush of excitement cut short by disappointment—I could hear it in his voice. This was the man he’d gone searching for in the courts of the Achaeans? This old man whose eyes squinted and ran? He searched my face for something to recognize, something he had seen in a mirror, but only the dead dog curled at my feet told him the truth, along with the old servant, who noticed a familiar scar on my leg when she stooped to remove the dog.
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Addison Zeller lives in Wooster, Ohio. His work appears in Michigan City Review of Books whenever he can help it.