a companion piece to “Icarus, Descending”
He had been a maker, once.
Architect. Designer. Engineer. Dreamer. He’d done it all.
Create a labyrinth for the beast enslaved by a king? No problem. Twist it so tightly it folded back on itself, so even he — the architect — could not guarantee a swift escape. Or any escape at all.
Build an animatronic bull convincing enough to seduce a goddess? He managed that too. Real skin stretched over the frame, hooves painted so they weren’t too glossy, musk sprayed beneath the hide. She couldn’t help but fall for it. Good thing she preferred the strong, silent type — even in bovine form.
Find a way to fly?
(To fly. To flit. To flee.)
Wax and feathers on a wire frame. Powered by muscle, guided by will. Biceps and triceps had to be strong, but the secret was the core.
Always the core.
And his son’s core had been soft. Not the body, but the part that governed common sense. The part that listened. The part that followed instruction.
Those strengths were black and mushy. Neither balanced enough to hold steady, nor strong enough to persevere.
Well. His son was free now.
Free from earthbound constraint. Free from law and weight. Free from blood, breath, bone.
And Daedalus himself?
He was trapped in a labyrinth with no exit, one constructed entirely in his mind. His minotaur was no raging half-man, but a beast made of grief and guilt. It hunted him through endless corridors of memory, always driving him back into fire, into saltwater, into the bitter tang of loss.
He had been a maker once.
Before.
Now?
Now he was just an old man with nothing left to live for, pacing the deserted beach of his own sorry soul.