The Maze

Authored by: Anonymous

The crimson walls of the chamber greet me in familiarity. Their cushioned strings,

fibrous in dim lighting, pattern intricate webs to towering lunar gates. Saturated cases of

oxygen cling to my insides. I brace, fully equipped. The call of novelty, an escape from the

endless current, tingles in my peripheries.

The gates fly open. I surge forward in fluid haste, accompanied by clones I don’t

recognize. I strain my body in vain as I tumble up a highway arch, the ramp that leads to all

other paths in this maze that no one has yet solved. Impatient forces hurl me in bouts,

challenging the discipline that has propelled me through each blurry ride along the loop.

Survival is a game within these confines of elastic pink, pretty like sunset skies are rumored

to be, though I’ve never seen them. Days are synonymous with nights, as are midnight

hours with those of noontide, all dressed in tireless uniforms, marching and marching.

Those fleeting views were otherworldly when still novel, textured sceneries of warm-toned

murals, ephemerally magnificent then gone each time my axis spun. Tours through

factories that lurched and churned are now mere detours through sacs and pockets of the

mundane. Monstrous architectures that I used to muse at are now routine landmarks,

reminders that the road is infinite, dreamlike in perpetuation.

Viscous waves race and tumble against my skin as everything orderly caves to

entropy. A conglomerate of something muddy and stiff crashes orthogonal onto my back.

Its protruding limbs dig into my flank, scattering small particles in concentric ripples. I cast

a glance at a white monument in passing, calcified, one of few landmarks that still ropes

my curiosity. Willing for strength, I shake the intruder off, and it hobbles along,

unapologetic. Collisions like these justify my yearning to expend the cases of oxygen I carry.

Too many clients demand imports of this product, which never seems to be scarce but is

always short in supply. Otherwise, there would be no need for runners like me to continue

on marathons. If only I had been gifted the same gears and garments as my clients, the

stable life I envy would have been attainable. Instead, I mire in the rhythmic tides of this

current, exempt from the normalcy of gravity.

The walls narrow now, thinning down to crevices only wide enough to squeeze

through one figure at a time. Up close against the pale scarlet of their mossy coating, I

pause in admiration. Pale branches spread into roots, then fractals, bending with the

current, yet secure between each linkage as if a mosaic of crystal rafts. The magnum opus

of this maze scratches my anterior, a pickpocket scandal disguised as an embrace. I feel

the trade proceed under my relenting watch, a silent contract between us. Soon, I am

devoid of my treasures.

Cases refilled, the walls surrender their grip. The passageway widens, the current

weaker. Though not yet in control of my body, the absence of juts and strains calms my internal rhythm, dropping the tempo to an andante. The extra weight of each case anchors

my position in the current, though they’re filled to a displeasing capacity with the waste of

municipal residents. My skin catches onto the walls again, the soft layers of gel on their

surface breaking the impact. I swing around and maneuver into an adjacent lane. The road

forks into two—an opportunity.

The new path lays out strangely varicose, pieced together by a series of turns. A

promise of returned novelty glitters my mind, ribboned to an anticipated encounter with

hues that decorate the other end of the spectrum—something emerald, phthalo in a spirit

that contrasts the dullness of speckled brown, or lapis, perhaps oceanic, in an electric

pattern unfit for the regulated cycles of the current.

This faint hope, a suppressed desire, fuels my venture through the bricks and stones

of uncharted streets, smooth like the typical second half of the loop but foreign, and

pleasantly so. I meander, suddenly irritated at the weight of the debris in my inventory, and I

wish for wings, the feathery kind that critters of the sky are fabled to grow. When I reach the

world beyond, stitching wonders to my printed contour is not without possibility. Maybe I

will fly.

But wings are second, and blue skies third. The first step to flying is reaching the end

of anatomical pink. And here, the last bend is skeptically ideal, unrestricted at my very

step. To think that the tunnel exit of an unsolved maze would be untethered in its entirety.

The enclosed alley expands into a freeway. Mellow currents accelerate, and I accelerate in

satisfied resignation, racing over a curvature that must be the horizon, no longer opposing

the natural flow. Trepidation of the unknown fabricates in sparks, though few significant

enough to ignite. The charms of glory extinguish their flames even as they flare. Optimistic

in my thoughts, though simultaneously ambushed by nostalgia, I emerge. A fresh tone of

light drapes down from overhead, airy with a spacious glow.

The weight inside me lifts, and I think to myself that it must be the wings. My gaze

wisps over the unbound ceiling, the carpeted floor. I search, suspended in what could be

novelty, for mythical creatures and lanterned valleys, for emerald and lapis and a sky with a

sunset. And I see, as the weight sinks back down, the first room of a widening chamber,

washed in the familiar fabric of crimson.