Labyrinth

Why him? Why here? Why this? How had any of it happened? He had always said he wanted to be a doctor. Once, a lifetime ago, he had a toy doctor’s bag, a glossy black affair with a clasp. Inside, vials of candy pills, a different color for every disease, and a reflex hammer, and a stethoscope that didn’t work. He wanted to know the names of the bones and was fascinated and horrified to learn that a skeleton walked where he walked.

That was when life was a road, with milestones. Everything clearly marked. Crawling at around eight months, walking by twelve. Complex grammar by three years. Stages and syndromes and clusters of cognitive leaps. It was a sensible, well-mapped world. Smart landmarks marched to the horizon and beyond, stars for pilgrims.

Now, life was a labyrinth you didn’t even know you were lost in. He spent all his time squinting to see clues that weren’t there. The walls all looked the same. From visions of doctor, with a fistful of candy-colored pills, to this. Odd jobber. Freelancer. Pleasant, almost exotic names for what he was: someone always between places he had never visited and would never arrive at. His dreams at night found him stymied by white walls. On waking, he realized he had left all the lights on. He had to remember to breathe.

Life was a desert, and he had surrendered in the face of it. He would wait at the edge, wait for a sign. His friends had drifted upward, away, snapping their tethers to him. Life was a jungle, thick with things hunting him. No, an ocean. A trackless void. Endless and endlessly swallowing him. He was lost in the gape of the world. He was sleeping more and more and his dreams beat down on him like a naked sun.