Year One

After first night -and we only called it that, we slept -we were optimistic, pragmatic, logical. We rested and when we arose we thought things would be clearer. Our legs were tired, but we thought after a little hike, we would be back in the open air again. We could imagine the open air. As that day grew on, we became angry and frustrated with ourselves. When we finally settled down to rest again, we reminded each other that it was only a matter of memory -we had only to retrace our steps. After the next day it was clear there was no memory to recapture. Then it was a matter of logic: if there is a way in, that same path is a way out. Logic sustained us for about a week. Then it became a myth, like any other, like our lives before. By the end of that week, we simply walked, we rested, we had grown tired of cursing. That was the week we thought the labyrinth was infinite. In the week to come, we came to wonder if it was not the labyrinth, but our minds that were bewitched, that the whole structure might not be no more than a few turns, but were somehow unable to remember or think. Then we realized for this trap, even a single turn would be sufficient. Then we realized it made no difference and how meaningless a word like “infinite” is.

Waking in the labyrinth was always a shock, a dreadful realization, an awful familiarity. For the next month we discussed our confused and vivid dreams in the labyrinth, now more real than our memories of our lives before. Then as we discussed them, the details of our dreams began to merge and we hoarded them as secrets from the other.

For many nights now, and I cannot say how many, I have dreamed only of the labyrinth. I would confess this to my companion, to know if he, too, now dreams of turns and passages that give birth only to more identical progeny of turns and passages. I would ask if his legs, too, are so weary and tired that he cannot feel them. If his ears too, are so deaf with the dumb echo of our steps endlessly clattering that he cannot tell if we are walking, have stopped walking, or are being followed. If his eyes, too, are so used to the inevitable and unvarying pattern of turns and passages it is wholly believable that he lost sight long, long ago, and is blind. This would explain much, of how we are able to see in the labyrinth, long after we should have exhausted all source of light. But how do we sustain ourselves? And where do we get the energy to negotiate these interminable turns and passageways?

When did we enter the labyrinth? I know it has been a year, a year since our birth, our birth as inhabitants of the labyrinth, upon which we entered it from the outside world. I know that we are twin, like a man and his shadow. But I do not ask him, for we may be no more than this, joined at the feet. And if he cannot answer, then I am actually alone. And if he answer, then he is alone, alone, alone.

66th TURN;
WORDS: 58,114