Flickering candle

She waited. It seemed she had been waiting her entire life. She had a wonderful husband, strong and wise, a true king of his realm. She had a son, so like his father, youthful and inquisitive. She had a kingdom where she had become queen. She had everything for happiness! But her husband had gone off to war, and since then, all that was left for her was to wait. To wait, and each evening, to leave a flickering candle on the window facing the shore, like a beacon for all who were lost at sea. But the years passed, and Odysseus did not return. The years of her predestined happiness, which had seemed so obvious, so inevitable, were melting away like the wax of that candle. Her bed remained cold; kisses and tender embraces lived on only in memory. Loneliness chilled her skin in the evenings, causing a shiver that no shawl could ward off. The nights that should have been filled with love and passion were filled only with the flicker of the candle and the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Her son was growing up, never knowing his father's touch, never hearing his voice. Odysseus had missed his first tooth, his first steps, the first joys and sorrows that they, as parents, were meant to share with their son. The kingdom was slowly withering, lacking the firm hand of a ruler. All the difficulties fell upon her fragile shoulders, making her posture ever more severe. A quiet danger was creeping into the palace, threatening to seize his throne... and his wife. Brazen suitors forced their way into a place meant for only one man—the one to whom she had sworn her vows. The one who was lost without a trace in the endless waves. The one for whom this candle flickered on the window every night, shedding wax like her tears and her hopes. And her years of happiness, never received. The Moirai seemed to have deceived her, gifting her the perfect love that so rarely befalls the scions of noble families, usually doomed to dynastic marriages. But the beautiful picture of familial happiness had dissipated like smoke over an extinguished candle, leaving only hope and expectation. An endless waiting, like the endless yarn on the loom weaving a shroud that must never be completed. She could have chosen another's hands, another's kisses on her shoulders, frozen from lack of caresses, another man whom her son would call father. She could have solved all her problems by renouncing the Moirai's deceitful promise. But every evening, Penelope would stubbornly light a new candle on the window, leaving it to flicker like a tiny beacon, weeping waxen tears over the happiness that never came to be. Every evening, Penelope stubbornly continued to hope and wait.