Odysseus’s headlights flickered one last time, then faded. Everything went black. It was time to abandon my beloved vessel.

Now we’re standing a safe distance away, watching smoke seep out of the engine compartment. The flames have gone out. Every few moments, a small glowing red scrap falls to the road shoulder beneath the bus.

The inky world around us is so still, it feels like time has stopped.

Beside the road, in a field of tall grass and wildflowers beneath a black star-speckled dome, Tinsley and I lie on our backs under a blanket on the mattress I dragged out of Odysseus. Despite our urging that he wait until morning, Cousin Barry insisted on walking into Kemptville to see if there’s a place to spend the night. I imagine that after years of hardly leaving his house, Barry’s not that keen on sleeping under the stars.

I have never seen a night sky so black, or dotted with so many shimmering pinpricks. But that blackness reflects the gloom weighing on my heart. I suspect that I’m still hours from my ladylove. In the morning, even if we find some sort of public transportation to Ottawa, how will I get the rest of the way to Camp Juliette? Especially before five p.m.?

No answer is forthcoming. I guess I should wait until morning before giving up hope. Meanwhile, I have something else to mourn. It is said that you should never love anything that cannot love you back, but were Odysseus capable of emotion, I am certain the feeling would be mutual.

Unlike Arno, whose dependence on the GTO is probably a mask for feelings of inadequacy. Unlike the paterfamilias, whose pride in his MG “classic” is an advertisement for what he imagines is his maverick entrepreneurial image. My love for Odysseus was born out of its slow, rattling, oil-slurping vulnerability. The bravery with which the microbus forged ahead without power steering, without power brakes, without power, period, in a world increasingly populated by bigger, stronger, brawnier vehicles.

I knew that Odysseus’s leaky four-cylinder fifty-horsepower engine was its Achilles’ heel. (Oops, could Odysseus have an Achilles’ heel? An Achilles’ wheel? What would Miss Landers, she of the Hell’s Grammarians, say about that?) I once looked into having the engine replaced, but the projected cost of parts and labor amounted to more than I’d paid for the entire microbus.

And I think of the real Odysseus, the Greek king for whom my vehicle was christened. The brave warrior who slept many nights under star-filled skies while he journeyed for ten years to reach his home. The stalwart voyager who ordered his sailors to bind him to the ship’s mast so that he would not succumb to the sirens’ song on his quest to reach Penelope, his wife, the woman he loved.

Earlier today I began the journey to my Penelope.

Now what?

Beside me on the mattress, the siren Tinsley sighs.