For thousands and thousands of years, Calypso would never have imagined that once she escaped from her prison she would want to go back, but after all, Ogygia was made for her, and was intended never to leave.
For thousands and thousands of years, Calypso had been trapped in a prison. Not in a mortal prison, of course, for she was a godly creature, a nymph, daughter of the titan Atlas. Her own prison was on a beautiful island, surrounded by clear waters, filled with vegetation she herself had tended to, and containing invisible servants. She had her own little cave with her own sleeping quarters and her own garden and beautiful furniture that had been there for as long as she could remember. She had a perfect and clear view of the sky, particularly the moon, which shone on her precious little moonlace, causing them to bloom and glow to their full potential.
At first, Calypso's prison may seem like a paradise, another reason besides her breath-taking beauty to envy her. One may have gladly traded their life with her to stay in such a beautiful place for eternity. Unfortunately, rarely did any outsiders come across this island, for if any offered to trade places with Calypso, she would have gladly agreed.
After all, the island was a prison, made specifically for her due to her acts of treason against the gods of Olympus in the First Titan War. While the island held beauty for Calypso to behold, she had no one to share it with. Her punishment was solitude. She was unable to escape to the outside world, to watch as it progressed, to find company, which she wanted for as long as she could remember. She received news of the outside world from time to time, but it was never enough to satisfy her longing for a sense of belonging.
What was even worse was that occasionally, a man she was guaranteed to fall in love with would appear on the shores of her island. She would love and care for them, but the men were always destined to save the world, to leave her and fulfill their duties as heroes. She would beg them to stay, but they always left her, leaving her with a heavier feeling of emptiness than before. She spent years and years resenting them for leaving her, though she knew it wasn't their faults.
One day, a scrawny boy came crashing onto the island, who Calypso disliked at first sight for the fact that he destroyed her table, one of the only precious things she could call hers. Though she hadn't realized it at the time, her immediate dislike for a man sent to her island was a sign that the curse binding her to the island was slowly unravelling. She grew to like him, and once again felt deep sorrow when he left.
Another odd thing about the boy was that he came back for her. He came back. Calypso found herself weightless with joy as she was carried off with him on his golden beast, away from her eternal prison, on which she had stayed for as long as she could remember.
In her life in the outside world, Calypso felt completely overjoyed. Her needs of community and love were fulfilled, and she no longer needed to rely on a god's word to know and experience what was happening outside of the island. The world had advanced so much since she had been there, and she was eager to know about every single thing on earth she had missed.
She would spend days and days on end with her lover, listening to him talk about the mighty metal creatures that people use to travel; about the power of a device that could capture a moment's beauty forever; about a genre of music where handheld instruments were not needed; about stories of times when mortals believed in other gods; about stories of times when magnificent beasts roamed the earth; about stories of times when humans almost brought themselves to their own extinction; about a wondrous meal known as "peanut butter and jelly sandwich".
Calypso was finally able to converse with more than one mortal at a time, and she made friends with the heroes who saved the world alongside her lover. She watched them grow in their own refuges for demigods; she watched them bear children, watched their children grow as well; she watched them come and go, taking their own paths through life. As she watched them age, she aged herself as well.
Calypso watched as her lover's curly hair turned from black to grey, and his smooth skin began to sag, then altered her visage to match. She watched as her lover found it harder to move, his quick fingers slowing down with time. She watched as he entered an endless sleep. She watched as his body was swallowed by the ground, left behind as his soul entered Elysium. After an entire mortal lifetime filled with love, she felt loneliness once again.
For the years following her lover's death, she wandered around, confused. She was still free, but she had no idea what to do with her freedom now that she had no one to guide her. She stayed with her children's families, the children of the other heroes, but they all left her as well to travel to the domain of Hades. Though she could change her physical appearance to match the signs of aging those around her carried, she could not die along with them, for she was immortal.
After several generations of loved ones had gone, she began to panic. For as long as she could remember, she thought that the escape of her prison would mean an escape from the heavy feeling of isolation. She never expected the outside world to bring her that suffocating feeling as well.
She ended up leaving her great-great grandchildren, for they did not provide her with enough personal love to satisfy her. She found other men to stay with her, men that she had instantly fallen in love with, just like the men that appeared on her island. Like the gods, she found numerous lovers to relieve her loneliness. However, like the men that appeared on her island, they left her as well, to a world she could not reach herself. Unlike, the gods, she didn't find the temporary pleasure enough to satisfy her. She needed someone who could stay with her forever, never change like the world around her that was constantly shifting.
She chased gods and other immortals, but they never stayed either. Calypso lived cycles of love and loss and loneliness over and over for as long as she could remember. It was as if she never left her prison.
After thousands of years, she began longing for her island. Memories of flowers and water and sand surfaced, and she held onto them with a vice-like grip. She remembered her beautiful island, surrounded by clear waters, filled with vegetation she herself had tended to, and containing invisible servants. She remembered with fondness her own little cave with her own sleeping quarters and her own garden and beautiful furniture that had been there for as long as she could remember. She remembered her perfect and clear view of the sky, particularly the moon, which shone on her precious little moonlace, causing them to bloom and glow to their full potential.
She remembered with particular affection her moonlace. She remembered the way they outshone the other flowers and outlived them, surviving solely on the moonlight. She remembered how from each plant only one flower blossomed, and thrived under Calypso's care. She remembered her first moonlace, grown from an illuminated seed that seemed to have dropped straight from the moon. The lone moonlace dominated the garden, which was small at the time, and captured Calypso's love. These memories were the only things keeping the nymph sane through her cycle of infatuation and lust and loneliness.
Calypso held onto these memories with a vice-like grip, yet she could still not save the pieces that floated away through her fingers. She no longer remembered the way her cave looked. She no longer remembered the colours of the flowers in her garden. She no longer remembered the way the special breeze on the island felt, the breeze that felt like an embrace, holding her away from the outside and welcoming her in.
The world was constantly changing, causing her to lose things she held so dear. She no longer longed for a sense of belonging, a longing she had for as long as she could remember, but she longed for constancy.
For thousands and thousands of years, Calypso had been trapped in a prison. Not in a mortal prison, of course, for she was a godly creature, a nymph, daughter of the titan Atlas. At first, Calypso's prison may seem like a paradise, another reason besides her breath-taking beauty to envy her. A land filled with diverse creatures, and beautiful landscapes. A land filled with people who celebrated different ways of living, overlooked by mighty gods in a kingdom many believed to be myth. One may have gladly traded their life with her to stay in such a beautiful place for eternity. Unfortunately, this was not possible, for if anyone offered to trade places with Calypso, she would have gladly agreed. Her prison was the land of earth, where mortals could come and go, and Calypso was forced to stay, reliving the same cycles over and over, for as long as she could remember.
She hadn't realized that her escape was such an easy place to reach, until now. Her escape from her prison was in the island of Ogygia.
One morning, Calypso strode to a dock, with a sense of purpose she hadn't felt for years. She took a rowboat and began to row, propelled with her memories of the land that was always hers, and the promise that it would never leave her. "No man ever finds Ogygia twice," she always told the men that washed upon its shores, because the curse forbade them to. However, she knew the island would reveal itself to her, and it proved to be true only minutes later.
As Calypso collapsed onto the familiar sand, and admired her garden's beauty, lit by the moonlight, the island's breeze held her in an embrace, welcoming her home and keeping her from the world outside, a breeze she was familiar with for thousands and thousands of years. In the first time since she could remember, she had no intention of disobeying Ogygia's call for her to stay.
After all, Ogygia was made for her, and was intended never to leave.