Minotaur

Hermes speaks, “You have lost your way. Your ancestors demand penance.” He raises his caduceus and the world spins.

I am in a line. A baker’s dozen ahead of me. Together, we are an equal number of women and men entering into the torch-lit darkness. A roar is heard, and the herd of men and women disperse into the Labyrinth. I am alone. I do not run. I have a familiarity with darkness and monsters cannot hurt ghosts. I am only a memory here and my memories are stretched thin from suffering, so I am nothing at all.

Another roar and more screams. “Why do they run?” I wonder, “Where is there to go anyway?”

I hear men and women screaming one word over and over again. “Minotaur!” I hear it again echoing off the walls in vibrations of terror. Another memory. Minotaur, the monster that fed on human flesh, born out of pride and ego. Made no sense to me when I first heard the tale. Bullshit I thought, chuckling to myself. Bulls don’t eat meat. Was that just youthful naivete I now wonder?

The screams have faded to silence now. It is a heavy silence and I am blanketed in it. It is a silence that carries the weight of human desires and despair. Two sides of a coin I heard someone say once. This two-sided silence presses against me as if it might crush my bones and collapse my lungs. My bones don’t mind, they are home after all. My lungs however resist.

I turn around another bend. I see him. He is magnificent! Enormous horns and eyes that see the lies behind my suffering. He launches towards me, head down, horns forward. The frescoes of the palace spring to mind. My hands reach for the horns and my body springs like my mind over and above the Minotaur. I land on my feet. I am exhilarated. I feel alive again. A Cretan leap into the unknown. There is no other way to leap. A memory to keep. To fill with blood and bones and sinew. A resurrection.

He roars a laughter. I turn to see blood-stained horns.

I look down and see my chest cavity open. Suddenly he speaks. “You’re going to need some help stitching up your sadness, but I will keep this,” he says pointing to the blood on his horns.

“My blood?” I ask noticing that I feel no discomfort.

“Just a shaving off your ego. The part that was too caught up in how it expects itself and others to be to let you live or connect with what is right in front of you.”

“So you don’t feed on human flesh then,” I say, less a question and more a statement in confirmation of my youthful questioning.

“Of course not. How ridiculous.” He says with disgust, “Bulls are herbivores.” he continues, “If I was a carnivore, I would have the head of a man and the body of a bull,” he laughs at that as I shake my head vigorously trying to dislodge that image from my mind.

He continues, more serious now, “But divinity demands sacrifice. It is just not always what you people think. I am here to invite you into faith, but as you already know faith requires action. Leaping into the mystery, into the unknowable, into nature,” as he is saying this he is waving his hands flamboyantly over his enormous frame and finishes by pointing to his horns as he continues, “And people need me to shave off that part of their ego that forgets the truth and seeks only certainty.”

After stitching me up he walks me out. As I leave this labyrinth he roars one last piece of advice, “And don’t forget to change the colour of your sails.”