Labyrinth

You may have heard of “once upon a time” but sometimes there is also “once upon a space” where the events of the fairy tale happen in the present, but in another realm. Imagine a little girl skipping through the woods enjoying the sunshine and the wind, the grass and the trees. She’s happy and she’s content. This story is about her, in another realm. Instead of grass underfoot there is stone cold and hard. Instead of trees there is a wall, again of stone, damp to the touch. It’s not a cool dampness with moss either, to be enjoyed on a hot day. It’s a never ending wall in all directions so that no air moves along the corridor and nothing grows on it. It’s a labyrinth with endless dead ends. So this little girl isn’t skipping gaily anymore, she’s trudging along in the shadow of the wall, struggling to breath, and hoping to find her way out. She’s cold and her feet hurt. At one dead end there is huge bed with blood red covers and soft pillows and she thinks perhaps she can rest a bit.

But that’s part of the nightmare of the endless labyrinth. It’s not terrible at first, lying in the bed. It seems restful. There appears a little window nearby from which a cool breeze blows. She feels as though the bed is swallowing her and it’s okay, because falling deep into the softness removes the pain. From above, miles and miles above, for the wall reaches into the sky for miles, a raven circles. It makes its way down in circles followed by another raven, and another, and another. Their tail feathers disappear into trails of choking smoke that block the bit of sun she can see. She cannot get up from the softness of the bed that now pulls her down without her permission. The ravens come ever closer until they land on her arms and legs and stomach. Some take bites of her stomach, others jump on her stomach and cut like razor blades into her.

From the distance she hears a voice that’s like a portal to another world she barely remembers, asking her to walk walk walk with him in the woods where the grass is green and the birch whisper sweet nothings in the breeze. Exhausted and open and desperate she pushes up from the bloody covers to walk. Ever the voice beckons from beyond the portal that ever moves ahead of her, just outside her reach. The ravens follow, screaming, trailing their smoky tails like demons. She stumbles on the stones beneath her feet, one foot in front of the other, blind in the present and able to see through the portal to some other place where she wants to be.

They come to a section of wall that shimmers transparent like sea polished glass. Through the wall she sees “family” breaking bread together, laughing, and handing her cake and ice cream. She reaches for it and as soon as it touches her hands it becomes ash, crumbling away to nothing and chokingly dry in her throat. “Family” doesn’t seem to notice. All the social cues tell her exhausted mind that she is there in the dining room, laughing and eating cake while her body feels the cold of the wall and her eyes see the shadow they cast. In the background the ravens scream so loud it’s like radio static being piped into her brain.

Eventually the polished glass clouds over and becomes solid again, and the child stumbles forward. It’s only in motion that she is safe from the carnivorous ravens so forward she must go. Forever moving forward, turning right then left, finding a dead end and turning around to retrace her steps. Moving into the hard coldness and crying and becoming blind even to the wall. Ahead she sees another portal with a scruffy old magician sitting in front of it. He’s kind, but he does not step aside to let her through the portal, he talks. “The ravens are addiction,” he says. And she’s so tired she can barely hope that’s true. Addiction is familiar and not so frightening as ravens that eat her bowels and slice her womb. She wants to tell him what she sees through the polished glass, but the static grows so loud she can’t find her voice. “Help me through the portal, I miss the grass and the trees” she whispers, but is not sure he hears. “I’m afraid.”

The ravens are huge and peck and slice and tear. She runs through the labyrinth in panic, seeing the “family” and hearing the voice telling her to get up and walk and finding the magician whose words echo off the wall “It’s addiction.” And finally the bed again, in a corner, soft. She falls into it and stares off into the polished glass at the “family.” She’s a child and she’s so tired of moving. Armed with a gun to fight off the ravens who morph into “family” she lies there confused like she has never been before. It occurs to her that to kill would feel good so she shoots the “family” and watches the blood seep through the walls. It doesn’t feel good, but the blood covers her like a blanket on the soft bed and reminds her of a warm womb where she can feel safe. It’s a thoughtless action that puts the gun in her own mouth and pulls the trigger, blood meeting blood. She’ll never bleed again.