Literary interlude: Ziggurat

The new girl sat at the computer in the corner playing Ziggurat, Panic!, and U-Turn. This was in the pine-panelled section of the Labyrinth, which is where the Minotaur had been hanging out lately, mainly because he didn’t remember ever having been there before, and he liked sleeping on the pool table.

The new girl was smaller than most of the others. Peanut-colored. Her shoulders shook. Her fingers twitched on the computer keys, making noises like munching rodents. Her eyes were filled with rhomboids of white, then blue, then red. Yellow. Then red again. Lots of red. And they were separated by two wrinkles that said to the Minotaur, Go away! I’m too busy for you!


It is true that the Minotaur was very strong and that his head was nearly as wide as his shoulders. But in fact he didn’t really look like a bull. He had no horns, no ring through his nose. He was just very, very ugly. His lips were fat and earthworm pink, his eyes were asymmetrical, and his eyebrows were like forests of black wire. The same with the hair on his head, and on his cheeks—which was indistinguishable from the hair on his body. He didn’t walk like a normal person; he lumbered. That was just the way he was born.

All of the other girls had run when they saw the Minotaur. The women, too, and the boys. Some of the men had tried to fight—not that it mattered. The end had always been the same: the Minotaur patting his belly, pulling a sucked femur from his slick lips. But no one had ever been too busy.


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