Author's note: I avoided to use his name throughout the text on purpose, just as I did during I Don't Blame You, another oneshot of mine. Enjoy reading, and please review!
Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, as well as The Heroes of Olympus, are the intellectual property of Rick Riordan. I own nothing but the (humble) plot of this short story.
Time… time was difficult on Ogygia. What was time, anyway? Time was an invention of mankind. Long ago, they had forced the flow of time into units. Hour, minutes, days, months… all of them nothing but a tool for men to measure the part of their humble lifespan that they had left. But if there was no limited lifespan, and no other men around, what was the point of measuring the time? If one lived forever, why count the time they had spent or left? If one was completely alone, why assign certain events to a certain time when there were no other people to communicate with? All in all, one could rightfully say, that on the island Ogygia, time was not necessary.
Despite the fact that he didn't measure it, he spent plenty of time thinking. He didn't settle on certain times to eat or sleep, he ate when he felt hungry, and he lay down when he felt tired. He wandered around whenever he was bored, but most of the time he spent thinking. And to him, it felt like an eternity. He had heard stories and myths about the island Ogygia, of course. But all of them differed from reality in two important points. One: There was no beautiful, young woman who fell in love with him. That wasn't the problem. The problem, however, was point number two: No magic boat appeared to bring him back into the mortal world.
He wasn't exactly sure what he was. Fact was, he was definitely not dead. Unless this was his eternal punishment, that is. But he felt pretty alive, solid, and totally not ghost-like. So that couldn't be it. But could one count it as alive if one was stranded on an island with nobody around, provided with food, water and a bed, but most likely confined for an eternity? Was that a live worth living? Not that he was considering suicide, he wasn't the type of guy to do such a thing, but the prospect of being alone, forever, scared the hell out of him.
He wished he would have the possibility of communicating with somebody. Even the idea of just talking to somebody, maybe even without seeing their face, made his chest tighten with longing. Right now, he wouldn't care to whom he'd talk, even if it were his worst enemy. It was hard to bear the silence of Ogygia. And thinking was even harder, because it inevitably led to thinking about the incident. He couldn't even name it. Now that he had time, time to think forever, he had realized his wrongdoings. He knew that he had acted beyond excuse, blinded by his hunger for power. And he would have happily given his left hand, or maybe his legs, if he would be given the opportunity to right his wrongs and be amongst other human beings once again.
But he couldn't. He might regret it, but there were no second chances. He had had his chance, and he had let it slip. No new beginning. He had cried at first, had let go of all dignity and cried and sobbed until he had fallen asleep from exhaustion. The first time had been the worst, living with the knowledge that he would be alone forever, and that he couldn't apologize. Sometimes, it was hard to live with himself. How was one man supposed to bear this? Not that he expected an answer to this question. He would find it out, anyways, because he had to bear it.
He missed the sounds of the mortal world. Ogygia was silent. Neither the cries of birds nor the whispers of the wind interrupted the silence. He didn't knew whether this was normal or not. Maybe it hadn't been silent in the old times, back when the island had been inhabited. Who knows. Did it matter? Well, it didn't. Now it was silent, who cared about the old times? But the question kept bothering him. He had enough time to think about it anyways. Heaving a sigh, he got up and walked away from the beach. Flinging stones across the water got boring after an amount of time one could only call 'immeasurable'. Literally immeasurable. Glancing at the sea for the last time, he wondered whether anybody cared about his fate at all.
Probably not.