Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine and never will be. Shall we weep now?
Author's Note: I though I'd found all the assignments in my folder. but this was sticking to the back of something. oh well:) This is what you get when you have no idea what to write for you mythology class and you keep turning in papers to the prof and they give you 4.0 on all your essays. So I eventually gave up knowing what to write and wrote this. enjoy:) this is the last of this series. unless you coun't the ones that i did for this class that have nothing to do with power rangers. if you'd like to read those email me and i'll send you a link if they aren't in this archive somewhere:) And as per usual. All spelling errors are as they were when I turned in this assignment back in the Spring 1999 semester.
Cassie sat in her usual spot at the Surf Spot contemplating her next assignment, while muncing on a chili frie. Her hair was a black dishelveled mess.
"Hey Cass!" TJ spoke, when he entered the teen hangout. Cass was so absorbed in her studying that she didn't hear him. He walked up to the table and pulled a seat alongside her. "What's up Cass? You look like hell!"
Cassie jumped when TJ spoke her name again, and looked up relieved that it was only TJ. "Hey TJ. Nothing's wrong." She said downheartedly.
"Something's up. Your hair's a mess!" TJ put on one of his million dollar smiles "Come on. You can tell ol' TJ."
Cassie looked at him with an unreadable expression. Then she caved in and told him what was bugging her. "I've got this assignment due in a few hours and I have no idea what to right. I've got blank page syndrome!" The exasperating look on her face was so cute that TJ cracked a smile despite himself. "It's not funny!" she said only making her look even more cute to TJ.
"It's not that," TJ tried to reassure her. "It's just that you look so cute when you do that." When he got to so his voice went into babytoalk. Watching Cassie's reaction to it just made him do it even more. Whith a sigh, he got back to the issue. "Your still trying to figure out how to write that Odyssey essay? It's been two weeks!"
"I know!" Cassie shot back. I wrote it and I was going to email it to my teacher when I got back from the store and my cousin pulled the surge protector out of the wall!"
"Ouch!"
"That was my reaction. But I didn't have time to check it out. I figured everything would be fine. That is, until I got back, and turned the computer on and nothing happened!!!" Cassie's voice was raisng an octave with each sentence she spoke and a small vain on the side of her head was starting to swell.
"Calm down Cass. Take a deep breath . . . that's it." After he got her to calm down TJ asked, "Now tell me what happened."
Cass took another deep breath. "Ayat was in a coma I couldn't bring her out of."
TJ looked at Cassie perplexed. "Ayat? Whose Ayat?"
Cassie looked at him blankly for a second. "Yat's the name of my computer. Anyway, I called the Service Support for my computer, and they helped me revive her. But everyting I did last week was scrambled beyond recovery!" Cassie sighed. "The only thing I didn't print out or back up was my essay and I have no idea what I wrote on it. I was in one of my weird creative states that only happen once in a blue moon."
TJ thought for a moment, then an ideastruck him. "Cass, you said your only creative once in a blue moon?" Cass nodded suspiciously. "Well," he continued. "There's a blue moon tonight. You're going to be at your creative high." Cassie gave him raspberries and rolled her eyes. "OK. Tell me about the story and maybe you'll get some ideas."
"Well, OK." Cass responded hesitantly. "I have to describe Odysseus' journey." She had to think for a moment. "Well, le'ts see. The story kind of begins towards the end of the tale. Odysseus really ticked off Poseidon and had to stay on Calypso's island with her. But eventually the gods took pity on him and let him go. He sailed in a raft until he met the Phaeacians. And told them what happened to him and his men after Troy.
Their first adventure brought them to the Lotus-Eaters. They were going ashore to get supplies when some of the men became addicted to the lotus plant. They set sail soon thereafter to prevent anymore of the men from becoming addicted. Then they came to the land of the Cyclops and used some of his famed quick wit to trick the Cyclops, which enabled their retreat. Some of the men didn't make it back from that one.
They went to visit Aeolus who lives on a floating island. Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag of wind to give him a swift ride home. But his men thought that Aeolus gave him a bag of treasure and when Ody was asleep they opened the bag and the wind blew them back to the island. WHen Ody asked Aeolus to aid him again, Aeolus got mad and told him he was truly cursed and he wouldn't help him again. So Ody and his men left and had to travel through doldrums unable to use their sails."
"Doldrums?" TJ asked.
"Yes, doldrums. You remember what those are, we talked about them when we went over the Albatross."
Cassie coud see the lightbulb light up inside TJ's head as he remembered. "Oh, yeah! OK. Go on."
Cassie rolled her eyes, and continued. "Next they visited a land of giants. Ody had twelve ships with him. And eleven of the twelve ships took up harbor close to the land while Ody decided to hang back and moored his vessel a little bit farther out than the rest of his captains. Well the next thing they knew, the giants were attaking them and the only thing Ody could do was to cut his ship loose and leave."
"And then there was one." TJ said melodramatically.
"Yeah, well anyway. Ody and his men found another harbor and they split up to see if it was inhabited and to get more supplies. They came across the goddess Circe. As usual Ody's men did something stupid and Circe turned them into pigs. ODy managed to convince her to free them and she agreed on the condition that he go to Hades to seek out Teiresias, the Prophet.
So on went Ody to Hades and spoke to Teiresias. Teiresias told him that there were many men staying at his house and what he's got to do to get rid of them and restore peace to his life. On his way out, he met Agamemnon and Achilles and talked to them a bit about their families. After that he saw Tatalus . . . I think that's what his name was. You know now that I think about it, I think that's where tantalize comes from." TJ gave out a groan but said nothing, and motioned for Cassie to continue.
"Well, he saw Tantalus, Sisyphus, Heracles and a few other shads of people he knew and heard about." Cassie paused, she'd momentarily lost her train of thought. "Oh yeah, when he left the land of the dead, Circe told him about the Sirens, and Scylla and Charybdis." She chuckled to herself. "Scylla and Charybdis. The origianl rock and a hard place."
"Cassie." TJ winced. At this pont Andros and Ashely walked up to them said their hi's and sat down and listend to Cassie finish telling her story. For Andros, this was the first time he'd ever heard the story and was truly amazed at how much the cultures of Earth and KO-35 were similiar.
"Well Ody, mangaed to hang on to a piece of dirft wood, escaping the fate of his men and ended up on the Iland of Calypso; which brings us back to the beginning of the story. Well, the Phaeacians gave him a ride back home, and Athena transformed him into an old man so that he could sneak into his home. But his son, Telemachus, recognized him and so does his old nurse. He made them promise not to tell anyone that he was back and they agreed."
"Later on his wife, Penelope, held a contest for the suitors. She told them she would marry the one who can string Ody's bow, and shoot an arrow with that bow through the holes of twelve ax handles. Mind you the bow is enchanted and the only one who can string the bow is someone of Ody's blood. But nobody really thought about that at the time. Anyway, all the suitors tried to string the bow and couldn't. They eventually let 'the old begger' have his shot. . . and he does it. The suitors thought they still had a chance because no one could shoot through all twelve of the ax handles . . . but he does it. And kills all the suitors right after that. All hundred of them.
By now, Penelope was getting suspicious. and the nurese caved in and told Penelope that the old beggar was indeed her husband gone so long. Athena returned Ody's youth and made him even more beautiful than he was before. Penelope decided to test Ody one last time and told the Nurese to move the bed out of the bridal chamber to celebrate. At this, Ody got mad and asked who moved his bed because only god could do that for his bed was apart of an olive tree. Penelope apologized for testing him and the two lived happily for a whle. Odysseus eventually left and was killed by friendly fire from his son, Tlegonus. Guilt ridden Telegonus took his half brother Telemachus and his step mom Penelope to the island of Circe, his mother, and mad them immortal. Telegonus married Penelope, Circe married Telemachus and they lived happily ever after. And that's the Odyssey for the most part anyway."
"You Earthers sure do have strange stories." Andros spoke up when Cassie finished. He didn't want to tell them Kerovan myths were even weirder and had more graphic undercurrents than the myths and legends he'd heard so far.
"Yeah well I just bet that your stories are a lot weirder to us." Cassie retorted.
"well this Odysseus was a lucky man to have sympathizers among the gods. 'Cause he sure did piss off more than his share of them." Andros spoke.
"Andros, it's just a story. Odysseus symoblized the aged old warrior that used his cunning to get out of real bad situations."
"But he lost all of his men." Andros retorted, he was about to say more when what he was saying struck home to him. He didn't want to get inot this discussion. It could lead to the others finding out things about him that he wasn't ready to explain yet, so he just dropped it. He wasn't ready to tell his story yet. Not even to Ashley whom he believed he was beginning to fall in love with.