I HAVE NEVER OWNED A HORSE, but I remember my Grandmother teaching me that an unshod hoof on asphalt leads to lameness. Linoleum is no different, I’m sure.
So, upon finding a hoofprint in the drywall dust, I have some mixed feelings.
My first thought is that the poor animal probably has a limp, wandering this maze unshod. My second thought is, of course, there is no monster in this maze.
I might have missed the mark, pressed into a fine layer of drywall dust, had my Stetson not landed squarely on top of it. Only when I bend to pick up the hat up do I see that in the dust lies a hoofprint. A hoofprint.
I imagine a horse, like the one my Grandmother used to have—an old half-blind mare. Indoors. In an office building. Some intern’s idea of a practical joke. I imagine the horse wearing a party hat.
We did that once, my Grandmother and I. Placed a party hat on Aria’s head when she turned thirty-six. My Grandmother gave Aria two helpings of oats, and we sang Happy Birthday in the stable.
Of course, I’m disillusioned about this maze being anything akin to an office building. Something else, then. A drywall maze constructed for a horse, maybe, with a pile of oats at the far end as incentive.
And that would make me ... what? A fly accidentally caught in the web? I shake my head.
Unbidden, I’m reminded of my Grandmother comforting a little boy trembling at the horrors he’d witnessed in a corn maze: “There is one real monster in any maze. Only one creature that can find its way around.”
I take a step back and give myself a pep talk: I’ve spent time around animals, it should be easy enough to tell what this belongs to. After all, monsters don’t exist.
I lean in and examine the hoofprint.
The imprint in the dust is split into two distinct, disconnected halves. It’s large, maybe ten inches across. Not a horse, then. Cow, maybe. Or deer? I’ve seen them wander into city streets before, though I don’t know what their hooves look like.
I’ve never seen one wander into a building, but who knows where this complex is located. Maybe it’s some abandoned insane asylum tucked away in the middle of the woods. Or maybe it’s not abandoned and I’m in a padded cell right now. That would explain some things.
I return to my lab rat hypothesis. Perhaps I’m one of many specimens. A cross-species test, then. Various mammals, wandering down white halls. Does a human in its constructed, but ‘natural’ environment snap before an animal removed from nature?
Or maybe: grudge match, man versus moose. Two enter the labyrinth, only one leaves!
Perhaps I’ve been abducted by aliens and this is an interstellar Noah’s ark.
I shake my head again. I can think through this. A hoofprint does not an alien abduction make.
Fact number one: there is an animal in here with me. How it got here is irrelevant, unless it leads me to an exit. The animal was probably chewing on a red string when my shouting startled it. With all the racket I made, I’m not surprised the beast ran. It escaped through this hole.
Fact number two: someone else made this hole. That someone is, maybe, the person who unravelled the other mitten. That someone is, probably, the person who took my clothes. And if they did make this hole and they did leave their thread here then what does that mean? Is the exit nearby? Or did they give up?
I decided to follow them.
The animal—whatever it is—is unimportant. I shake my head and grin at my foolishness. I test the word, “Minotaur.” I laugh. What an absurd word. These empty halls are really getting to me. “Minotaur,” I say again, louder.
Whatever roams these halls with me is no monster and it’s certainly no threat. In fact, I feel sorry for it. Yes, I do. Poor beast, walking these hard floors unshod.
Even if it does find a way out, it may have to be put down. The horseshoe was not invented until several centuries into the A.D., but glue predates the Bible. The Greeks made glue from bull skins and damaged hooves.
A maze is no place for a Minotaur.