If you did as I do, I’d call you my foe.
You’re in the labyrinth, looking for the exit. You turn right at one corner, then left at the next. Turn left. Left again. Right. Right again.
Though each wall and each corner look identical, you sense you’re nearing the exit. Right. Left. Left again.
But when you round the next corner, you are face to face with the minotaur.
There’s no escape. Your whole frame trembles. “Please don’t kill me.” You rush the words out. “Don’t eat me.”
“Of course I’m not going to eat you. I just… I didn’t realize you were coming.” The minotaur sits on the ground. “Can we talk? Got a minute?” His horns span more than a meter. They sag downward.
For a while, neither of you speaks.
Finally the minotaur starts. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, of course not. Why?”
“You never come, for one thing.” He sounds pettish. “Everybody hates me.”
“Oh, come on, now.”
He shakes his taurine head. “Sorry. I’ve just been down in the dumps these days.”
“So I gathered.”
The minotaur sighs. “They’re never going to let me out of here. I’m a total monster. Even if I got out, what could I do? Can’t exactly get a job, right? Let alone a girlfriend. Apart from eating people, I don’t have any marketable skills.” He gives his words a bitter twist. “I feel like I don’t have a future. Because I can’t change. It’s like… like wandering through a night with no moon or stars. I’m so depressed.”
You have no idea how to respond.
“And I’m always hungry. Always hungry.”
Your scalp crawls. You start to sweat. “That sounds awful.” You sit stock still, but your eyes dart frantically, searching for an exit.
“I know why you came here,” says the minotaur in soft, measured syllables. He rises to his feet.
“No reason, really. In fact, I’ve got to get moving now.”
“No.”
You giggle. Your entire body goes clammy.
“I told you to stay put. Didn’t I say that?” He snorts sharply. “You never listen to me. It pisses me off. You hear me?”
“Um.”
“It always ends up like this. It’s always my emotions that are stronger. Don’t you know how I feel about you? Won’t you stay here with me?”
“I am here for you.”
“But you’ll leave someday?”
“No, never. I’m here for you, baby. Forever.” You scan desperately for a way out, but escape is impossible. “For as long as you want me.”
“I know why you came here,” repeats the minotaur.
Your blood runs cold.
“Your skin looks so soft. Succulent.”
“You promised. You weren’t going to eat me.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“But you promised.” You’re on the verge of panic—of tears.
“You knew I was here. I’m always here. And you came, didn’t you? You know what I am. Always a monster. Always hungry. Always depressed. Always in the darkness. Always waiting.”
“This time I just want to go home. Please.”
“You little bitch.”
“I’ll come back. I promise. I just want to go.” Your panic peaks. “Please.”
“You’re just trying to fuck with me.”
“Please let me go home.” Tears of terror wet your cheeks.
The minotaur towers over you, his eyes full of rage and hatred. “Fine. Whatever. Get out.”
“I’ll come back.”
“See if I care.”
“I promise.”
You back away and turn a corner. And another. The minotaur’s breath is on your neck—no, that’s an illusion. Turn right. Right. Left. Left again. You stumble into a run, searching for the way out.
But you can’t remember how you got in.
Dale Stromberg studied writing with the novelists Richard Bankowsky and Doug Rice in Sacramento, and lives in Malaysia now with his family.