The Labyrinth

I lost my heart. It didn’t vanish suddenly. If it had, it might have been easier to find- like my mind too, which I always rediscover in some drawer. But no, I lost it slowly and imperceptibly.

All our hearts shine- green for hope, yellow for joy, and red for love. Long time ago, mine glowed neon red, covering my entire being. Some gazed with joy, and those with a hole where their heart should be, with envy.

In fact, trying to fill other people’s voids, I lost my own heart. And it worked. In my presence, all hearts began to glow.

Some people are born without a heart. Mine could only falsely replace theirs. Heartless people always left once their started to glow, only to once it faded. I welcomed them, until my heart dimmed was lost.

For years after, I stayed home, staring at the walls, unable to snap out of the shock of realization. The next stage of mourning involved staring at a screen showing black-and-white movies, but during that time, I’d experience sudden, intense bouts of crying without any particular trigger. They didn’t last long but were frequent. Finally, I entered the stage of questioning, then reflecting, and ultimately learning about the nature of people with holes.

That’s when I learned that, if you’ve ever had a heart, it can’t simply disappear—someone most likely stole it.

Those who lost their hearts and wanted them back ventured into the Labyrinth—a place where all lost hearts reside. Although I didn’t know if my heart’s thief had kept it, sold it, or discarded it in the Labyrinth, my only option was to try and search for it there.

On my way to the Labyrinth, I felt deeply uncomfortable because of the hole in me. Shame and humiliation consumed me. People passing by either pitied me or resolutely ignored me. I quickened my steps to hide among those searching for their hearts, just like me.

Lost in thought, I realized people with hearts were in the minority. It frightened and saddened me.

Most people with holes felt no shame, walking freely, even resisting the idea of having a heart. They scowled, schemed, and disrupted others, driven by an inexplicable sense of superiority.

This pushed me into a sprint toward the Labyrinth, as being on the streets was unbearable without at least hope.

Panting, I arrived at the entrance to the Labyrinth, only to be halted by a sudden thought: “Are you sure you want your heart back?” I asked myself in fear. “It was your heart that caused you so much pain, allowed so many betrayals by those closest to you, and left you isolated for so long. What if they take it again?”

I hesitated, but I knew it was better to feel something, even pain- than nothing at all. Without this journey, I wasn’t alive. Before entering, one final thought, or rather Virginia Woolf’s quote, passed through my mind: “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” I stepped in.

The found The Labyrinth’s hidden entrance by noticing one bush seemed deeper. “Perspective.” I thought as I stepped in.

One good—or bad—thing was that my decisions would be made solely on an intellectual level, as I’d lost my intuition along with my heart.

The first decision I had to make didn’t seem solvable by intellect: left or right? The Cheshire Cat might have said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, then it doesn’t matter which way you take.” “That’s right. Whichever path I choose, it’ll lead me somewhere.”

I chose left and stopped again. “But how do people exit the Labyrinth if they don’t know how they entered or where they’re going?” I was never short on questions. Answers, on the other hand, were scarce but, fortunately, rarely missed. “You can’t open an umbrella just because you expect rain. First things first—find your heart. If and when you succeed, then think about leaving. Nature mostly takes care of everything itself.”

Just around the first corner, the Labyrinth became dark, almost impenetrable, and utterly silent. In the darkness and stillness, I suddenly felt lost, afraid I’d never find my way. I wasn’t sure if I was moving at all until I bumped into a man sitting on the ground.

“Oh, excuse me, I didn’t see you.”

“Don’t worry; no one ever notices me. But that’s for the better,” he said.

I sat beside him and asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that others don’t notice you? It’s like you don’t exist.”

“Exactly. But don’t be fooled—that’s the ultimate freedom. I sold my shadow to forget the past,” he said quietly. “Now I’m invisible, free from everything. I no longer feel pain, sadness, or fear.”

“But that’s emptiness,” I said, struggling to understand his indifferent contentment.

“Yes, but an empty man doesn’t know he’s empty,” his words echoed hollowly.

I touched shoulder of The Man that sold his shadow and said: “Freedom without emotion isn’t life.”

I stood up and followed the faint green threads glowing along the walls until I finally emerged into the light.

In front of me, bathed in light, sat a beautiful woman wearing an opaque glass mask. The mask was sculpted into the face of a goddess.

The Labyrinth was filled with mirrors—cold, shining, interrupted by cracks through which searing light shone, like from a volcano. As I turned around, I noticed that my reflection was different in every crack, but the reflection of The Woman with the glass face remained the same.

Amazed by her beauty, I couldn’t hold back my words: “You are beautiful!” I whispered to her, my mouth almost agape.

“Thank you, dear. Everyone tells me that,” she spoke gently, with an angelic voice.

Without taking my eyes off her, I asked, “But why the mask?”

“Oh, please, don’t mention the mask. I’m afraid it might break any moment and reveal my real face,” she said, sounding ashamed.

“What kind of face must it be to need hiding?” I couldn’t understand.

“Vulnerable, my dear. Vulnerable. If people without hearts saw my true face, they’d all rush to wound me. With this cold expression on the mask, they feel awe instead. The mask doesn’t hide my face” she confessed. “It hides my fear of what I’d be without it.”

I understood her fear, shame, and humiliation entirely. I felt the same. All my life, I allowed others’ words to be my judge and jury. But now, surrounded by my own reflections, I realized—only I know who I am, and I have the right to define myself.

Looking at the different reflections, I realized each one defined me in its own way. Half-consciously, I told her, “I am not just one face, one moment, one feeling. Every reflection is a part of me, and I am all of them together.”

The Woman with the glass face froze. Her hands trembled, and behind the glass, I could see her eyes quivering—whether with fear or admiration, I couldn’t tell.

As the mirrors around me glittered with thousands of reflections, it felt like the whole world was spinning. My voice echoed, colliding with the cracks in my reflections, and every word became clearer to me!

Turning around in a whirlwind, I shouted: “But I no longer want to hide my vulnerability! I don’t want to worry about what others think of me! Only by being my authentic self will others’ words cease to hurt me. I am not just one mask! I am a thousand versions! I am not just a reflection in the mirror! I am a person of flesh and blood, with all my joys and sorrows, pains, and hopes!”

In one nuclear second, all the mirrors shattered, and the light from the cracks exploded into a blazing glow. Time stopped, and space broke into pieces. The light didn’t just explode—it suffused everything, flooding The Labyrinth with warmth and brilliance. I felt the light permeating me, erasing fear and doubt.

When the flash subsided, The Labyrinth was empty. The woman and the mirrors had vanished, leaving only silence and an open path ahead of me.

Suddenly, my heart began to glow faintly green. I was on the verge of tears. “My beautiful heart.” It seemed sadder to see it weak than to see the hole. As the green light filled the space within me, I realized the walls had fallen, the masks disappeared, and I was free to be myself again.

Gently placing my hand over my heart, as if afraid to lose even this faint glow, I rounded the next corner and emerged into a vast meadow covered in primroses. At its center stood a magnificent tree with a majestic canopy. I felt my journey nearing its end, though I couldn’t predict how.

Beneath the tree sat a pale figure of a man, his ink-stained fingers buried under piles of crumpled papers. His eyes were empty, as if searching through the world for something he couldn’t find.

Approaching him, I noticed he was crumpling sheet after sheet of unwritten paper.

Carefully, I asked him, “Are you writing?”

He lifted his gaze and stared at me as if now seeking in me what he couldn’t find elsewhere. Giving up on his stare, he lowered his head again and replied, “Yes. And no.”

“How can it be both?” I was confused.

“Yes—I was a poet. No—I’ve lost my inspiration writing what they wanted, not the truth. Now I don’t recognize my voice. I’m The Poet who lost his inspiration…” he confessed.

His heart, like mine, glowed green. We both still held onto hope, but we had nothing to feel joy for.

I sat beside him, wrapping my arms around my knees, and confessed, “The same thing happened to me, only I lost my heart. It hasn’t glowed red in a long time.”

“Ah,” he warned me gravely, “don’t be deceived. For a poet to be an artist, their heart must glow red. Hope and joy alone are not enough for good poetry.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true for all art,” I said, unfolding one of his crumpled papers.

“And now what?” I asked, not sure if I was posing the question to him or to myself.

“Now we wait…” After a short silence, during which we sat as though our hands were tied, he continued, “You know… Sometimes it feels like she’s gliding in on an irresistible sunbeam, serene and quiet, but the sea immediately washes over the beam, and she disappears.”

Startled, I quickly grabbed a pen and begged him to repeat what he said, as if I hadn’t heard it. I wrote down his words and stared at them in awe.

“What did you write?” he asked curiously.

Half in disbelief, I replied, “A verse…”

“Oh, so you’re a poet too?”

I looked at him with joy, handing him the paper: “No, you are.”

His pupils scanned the verse repeatedly, while his green heart began to glow yellow.

He leaped to his feet, grabbed my hand, and lifted me with him, beaming with joy, exclaiming, “And now? What do we do now?” Sadly, I didn’t know the answer, but the poet continued. “My inspiration was here all along; I had buried it, fearing the pain of its return.”

I began to understand, too! “The tree! Yes, the tree! It doesn’t try to grow—it’s in its nature to grow. Of course, it needs care, but it grows on its own!”

“Yes! Hearts and inspiration cannot be lost. They are the foundations of our being. They don’t come from the mind; they are present in our everyday experiences, even in our unplanned outbursts!”

My heart was never lost; I had simply neglected it. Like the poet’s inspiration, I didn’t need to search for it—I needed to let it be revealed. And here it was, with the yellow primroses, my regained yellow glow filling the meadow with joy.

We both paused and looked at each other. There was still the red glow to uncover. Together, we laughed and simultaneously declared, “We wait with joy!”

As I joyfully danced to bid farewell to the poet, I heard the sound of children’s laughter, the murmur of a brook, and the chirping of birds behind me.

Turning around, I saw a little Girl giggling as she sat by a stream, building a tower out of pebbles.

Overjoyed to see her, I sat beside her. She seemed oddly familiar.

She cupped her hands whispering: “Dark!” then open them, laughing, “Light!” She giggled every time.

Watching her play her “Dark–Light” game, I delighted in her carefree spirit. To her, darkness and light were equal. She didn’t analyze them, nor fear the darkness; on the contrary, she giggled at it.

Falling onto the grass with laughter, she looked at me and asked, “Do you want to play with us?” I didn’t want to confuse her or question her joy, but there was no one there except her. As if reading my mind, she introduced me to her imaginary friend on her right. She made me laugh so sweetly.

“How many friends do you have?” I asked.

“Oh, as many as I want. I just need to imagine them. Just like you with the friends you’ve met in The Labyrinth. You just need to imagine, and you’ll never be alone.”

“Were all those people an illusion?” I asked, frightened.

“So what if they were? Illusion is imagination. And you know what they say: ‘Imagination can do anything!’ It would’ve been boring without it.”

She wasn’t running from illusion, nor was she angry at it. She knew it was her imagined world, and she simply played in it, creating and loving in the moment.

“Well? Will you build walls with us or not? My friend is getting impatient.”

Once again, she made me laugh, this little Girl with a silky red ribbon in her messy hair, a crumpled red dress, short red socks, and muddy patent red shoes with straps. Her knees were bruised and scraped from play, but of course, none of that bothered her.

While I smiled, lost in thought about her, she handed me a pebble. “Come on, let’s build the wall. My friend and I have already made it tall. Keep going.”

Fearful of ruining their game, I said, “But what if I don’t know how?”

“Oh, everyone knows how to build walls. It’s the easiest thing. And you’ve built many already. Come on.”

I carefully placed the pebble on the tower and felt triumphant when it didn’t fall.

Then, like a playful bolt of lightning, her little hand unexpectedly toppled the tower with a joyful shout: “Crash!”

“But, but…” I stammered, completely taken aback. “All that effort! Don’t you feel sorry?”

She giggled again. “Sorry? Pfft. This is a game. Everything’s a game. And walls are meant to be knocked down, aren’t they?” she said, looking at me with a maternal wisdom.

Of course, for her, walls were neither burdens nor held any significance. Walls are hard to build but easy to break.

We played other games too, like “Guess Who I Am.” She always chose something insulting for herself, like “piglet,” “witch,” or “thief.” Each time her imaginary friend and I guessed who she was, she’d laugh, fall to the ground, and kick her little feet in delight. She didn’t care about labels or epithets. To her, questioning who she was felt like a waste of time that could be better spent playing.

Finally, we played hide-and-seek. She always wanted me to search for her while she hid. After a few rounds of finding her, she told me, “See, you always find me. No one can hide from everyone.”

In the last round, she hid for so long that I started to worry. My voice trembled as I called for her. The ground beneath me felt unsteady, The Labyrinth seemed to collapse, and the pressure in my chest almost robbed me of breath. I feared I’d never find her—or myself.

Sensing my fear, she called out from somewhere, “Don’t worry! I’m here! Right where I’ve always been! You’re just looking in the wrong place again—outside!”

A flood of emotions overwhelmed me. She was inside me! She was me!

The Labyrinth filled with red light as unbearable pain surged through my chest, my heart trembling with a strength I didn’t know how to handle.

“Why are you afraid of your heart?” the Girl’s voice was soft but piercing. “The heart knows how to love; just let it. Don’t resist.”

I wrestled with fear until her voice reached my heart: “Do you love me?”

The red light engulfed the sky and earth as I whispered through my tears: “Yes! I love you! I’ve always loved you!”

Her giggles resonated within me, filling the silence with their answer.

The Labyrinth dissolved shimmering dust as my heart blazed neon red, brighter than ever. The Labyrinth wasn’t a prison but a crucible. It had forged me stronger. This wasn’t the end but the start of a vivid, uncertain path. The one that I chose to how shape, one step, one heartbeat, at a time.