The Maze

      “Would you like a hint?”

           I stared up at the owl grimly, sweat pouring down my face, my hands streaked and bleeding.

           “I want to get the hell out of here,” I spat back.

           I was trapped in a corn maze. I’m wasn’t sure how long it’d been; my only guess was at the sun, which had been slowly rising and was now at its zenith, glaring down at me from a spotless blue sky. It’s a bad thing getting lost in a corn maze, embarrassing, yes, tiring after a while, sure, but the worst is when the fear picks up and starts to gnaw at your mind. Then things start to get a little dicey.

           I wandered into the maze on a whim, bored and trying to get a little time away from my date. I ambled among the rows of corn dumbly, making rights and lefts without sense and soon ending up somewhere in the death rows of the labyrinth, lost and unable to pick which way was which, burning in the heat of the sun and slowly becoming lost forever in the corn.

           “Would you like a hint?” The owl asked again.

           “Yes,” I muttered sickly, my hands clutching my thighs as I tried to rest. I refused to sit down in the maze. If I sat it would be death.

           “If you find yourself trying to find a way out, just look to your heart and you’ll find your way.”

           The owl only had two lines. Every few minutes or so it would ask if I would like a hint and then would spout off the same clue it gave every other time I said yes. It didn’t seem to be able to help, but for some reason I trusted in that plastic, automated owl to help me.

           I dry heaved onto the dirt path for a few more moments, feeling the popcorn and funnel cake and soft drinks begin to bubble up my throat. I tried to force it down, but it all came out at once, erupting from my mouth in a stream of muddy puke. I wiped my mouth with my shirt and steadied myself upright.

           “How the fuck do I get out of here,” I breathed.

           The corn looked to be about ten feet high. In some places it grew so high that it started to bend over the path, creating halls of shadows and caverns. I left the puke behind and went again to search for a way out, though by now I was weak and tired and beginning to get frightened. I turned quickly through the maze, searching frantically. The only sound was the wind sifting through the corn stalks and my own labored breathing, which had nearly grown to a wheeze as I fought through the trails. I searched for a human soul as my walk became a steady jog, but there was so one. My solitude was absolute, and in the distance behind me I could hear the owl’s voice call at me from behind:

           “Would you like a hint?”

           I’m not sure what got into me, but eventually I got so panicked that I decided to leave the dirt trail. I plunged off into the unknown, into the tall, tightly gown stalks of corn that seemed to whisper at me as I shot past. But I didn’t make it long; my feet were twisted and strung up in the overgrowth and I fell, tumbling down some slope into darkness and dampness.

           I woke in a cave with my face in a dirty puddle and the sound of trickling water in my ears. I picked myself up. Somehow, I’d fallen into the underworld of the corn maze. Behind me I could see the hole of light where I’d fallen through. The other way, tiny streams of water collected together and headed towards a cliff. I stepped cautiously towards it, my feet slipping on the mossy, smoothed stones. Stalactites dripped above.

           I peered over the edge of the cliff, my mouth falling open. A great waterfall cascaded into a shockingly clear pool at the bottom, where I could see stones and sediment of all colors resting at the bottom. At the bottom, aside from the pool, was a shoreline with a beach of red sand and a number of torches hung up on the dark walls. The sound of the waterfall echoed off the walls in a great, powerful echo. At the bottom was a crouching human figure, seemingly engrossed in something. He glanced up at me and then turned back to his work almost absentmindedly, as if expecting me to be there.

           “Well, what’re you waiting for?” He called up at me. “Jump!”

           I scoffed. There was no way I was jumping. Behind me was the hole of light – I’d turn and follow that out back to the corn. At least out there I was above the ground, still lost, sure, but it was a surface I was accustomed to. Down here I was in a different world. Jumping would only be going deeper into the unknown.

           And yet for some reason I found myself setting my feet and leaping off the edge, my legs kicking desperately in the vacuum. I fell as if in slow motion, my stomach lurching upwards into my throat, my heart pounding against my chest in strong, delayed beats. I had enough time to question whether there were rocks at the bottom, and also to hear a voice inside me scream, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” and then I was exploding into the water.

           The water was cool and refreshing and deep; I sank at least twenty feet without touching the bottom. I gasped up to the surface and let out an authentic yell of triumph. I picked my way through the clear water to the shore.

           The man was there on the shore and at first I kept my distance from him, unsure about a person alone down here in the middle of a cave. He was shirtless, taut with muscle and the kind of fatless skin that can only be attributed to living away from normal society for an extended period of time. Strangely, he was wearing swim trunks with a blue palm frond design that could’ve been picked up from the nearest Gap. He was sitting on his butt whittling. He didn’t even look up at me as I climbed up the shore and took a seat on the sand.

           “Took you long enough,” he said.

           There was something oddly familiar about his voice – it had a high, lilting noise that was immediately recognizable from somewhere.

           “What, you mean you’ve been expecting me?”

           “You could say that.”

           I scooted forward to get a better look at him. His face was grizzled with a dark and grayish beard. When he turned and looked at me, it was almost startling to see how blue his eyes were.

           “Who are you?” I found myself asking.

           A strange smirk cut the corner of his lips. “Would you like a hint?”

           It brought me back to a world of sunshine and brightness, of running aimlessly through the tall stalks waving in the blue. Of course. “You’re the owl,” I said.

           He finished whittling and blew some dust off his creation. He handed it to me. It was a little wooden owl, intricately and incredibly carved. He got up nimbly from the sand and walked over to the cave wall. At the press of a button a projection lit up and gave an overview of what I soon recognized as the corn maze. It didn’t look nearly as vast or confusing as it felt while I was frantically turning around the corners inside of it.

           “You could see me struggling in there, I take it,” I said, getting up from the sand.

           “You threw up in my maze,” the man said bluntly.

           I grimaced. “Sorry about that.” I had to yell to be heard over the sound of the crashing waterfall behind us. “Just not very good at those damned mazes, I guess.”

           “It’s not entirely your fault,” he said, and turned to smile at me with peculiarly perfect teeth. He waved me over. “The maze has a mind of its own,” he continued. “That’s the way I designed it. It’s a little different for every person that enters it. For some it’s an easy, casual five-minute stroll through some corn. For others it’s a little more challenging. And some, well, some have a different experience altogether.” His blue eyes twinkled at me. “The maze sensed something in you. Fear. A sense of longing, maybe, or of being lost.”

           “Oh, I was lost, alright.”

           “No, no, not like that.” He placed his hand on his chest. “In here. Lost, as in your soul. Searching for something. Something intangible.”

           I opened my mouth, but no words came out. It was as if a deep pit had opened up inside of me. “Lost,” was the only thing I could stupidly manage to get out. “How do I get out of it?” I asked him breathlessly.       

           His blue eyes seemed to burrow into the back of my eye sockets as he looked sympathetically at me. He put a firm hand on my shoulder and then embraced me in a suffocating, albeit warm embrace. When he pulled back, he seemed concerned. “I wish I could say that a hug could fix your problems, my friend. But I’m afraid your journey is going to get darker before you see the light again. We all become lost at some points in our lives, caught up in a storm of waves, fighting not to drown. It’s these times that we become the most human – battered, beaten down, scarred. We have to reach within ourselves to get ourselves out. You have to go deeper, my friend.”

           He led me to the base of a set of stone steps that led down into darkness. “There’s a torch at the bottom, and a door. Through the door you’ll find your freedom, though only after you pass through the darkness.”

           I swallowed drily and held out my hand. “Peter,” I said. “Thank you for helping me.”

           “Tyto,” he said, his calloused hand shaking mine. “Good luck, my friend.”

           He watched me descend the cold, dripping steps. The stairway wound down out of view, so that that when I went around the first bend the light became just a faint shadow behind me. My hands traced the damp, mossy walls. I soon realized that my clothes were still soaked from jumping in the water, and with each step my world got colder and darker.

           When the gray light behind me started to give way, an orange glow lit up in front of me. The torch was already burning when I lifted it out of its sheath.

           Through the door you’ll find your freedom, though only after you pass through the darkness.

           The great, old stone door shrieked open.

           The first thing I noticed as I stepped into the darkness was that there seemed to be another person with a torch standing right in front of me. I was startled backwards back against the stone door. 

           It took me a good amount of time to realize I was staring at my own reflection. I was so uncertain about it, in fact, that I approached it cautiously, not trusting it until my own hand came into contact with the glossy, cool, smooth surface. The torch burned brightly in the reflection; beyond it I could see the dim shadow of my dirt-streaked face, my wide, fearful eyes.

           What the fuck was I doing down here?

           The mirror was huge, one of the biggest I’d ever seen. It didn’t resemble a mirror so much as the side of a great granite crystal that had somehow been eroded into a perfect reflection. As I stepped forward, I saw with panic that the entire place was filled with these giant, rocklike mirrors. Some were shattered or cut here and there with jagged cracks, but the entire narrow way was littered with them, closing me into a hall of my own reflections, a cavern of mirrors.

           It’s one thing to amble through a cave, unsure which way is which, picking your way through cold and damp while fear slowly starts to rise to constrict your throat. It’s another thing altogether to see the reflection of your own panic in your face as you peer into your own reflection with each step. This is that I saw as I fought my way through the maze of mirrors. Each step felt as though I was traveling backwards – I took four lefts and began to believe that I was going in a circle. Time started to slip away.

           How long have I been in here? Two hours? Five minutes? Two days?

           Hot fear pricked its way up my back.

           As my torch burned low the mirrors started to grow and multiply, arching over me and copying my reflection to thirty, forty times. Pretty soon I wasn’t sure what was a reflection and what was myself. I focused on the sensation of my hand on the torch to keep myself tethered to my own soul.

           Fear soon gave way to desperation.

           I knocked into my own reflection three, four times. I no longer knew what I was searching for, where I was going. The torch dropped from my grip and burned to a low dimmer on the wet ground. I paused at one of the mirrors, my reflection nothing more than a dusty shadow. Faintly, I could see the dark tears trailing down my cheeks, the terror and disappointment and failure twisting my features.

           And through the fear an anger was born, burning red hot through my veins. I lashed down at the mirror, my fist banging onto the reflection. Once, twice, my arms becoming battered and bruised, kicking and pushing and doing everything I could do destroy this thing that was keeping me here.

           Finally, I heaved my whole body into it and the thing gave way, shattering under my weight. I burst through darkness into a blinding, warm, dry light.

           I lay on my back, letting the sun bake into me, the cold and the dark soon fading.

           When I finally got up, I realized I was at the other end of the corn maze. I’d made it. In the distance, I could see the glow of carnival rides and friends and families walking to food stands.

           “Hey, you made it!” It was my date. “What the hell happened to you?”

           I struggled at first, and then got to my feet.

           “I got lost.”