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The maze.

A create exercise from Hassan Abudu


The prompt was:
'You wake up one morning and find that you aren t in your bed; you aren t even in your r
oom. You re in the middle of a giant maze. A sign is hanging from the ivy: You have one
hour. Don t touch the walls. Finish the scene.'
I woke up in bed one morning, and found myself blinded by outside light. I put a
hand between myself and the sun, and sat up to look around. I was surrounded on
both sides by walls covered in dark-green ivy, gently wafting in windless condi
tions, and in front of me was a way going straight forwards, and then down a cor
ner to the left. I turned around. There was a sign hanging from a wall behind me
. It read, "You have one hour. Don t touch the walls."
I immediately climbed out of bed, and felt the wet grass on my bare feet as they
touched the ground. I began walking. I made it to the end of the path, and arou
nd the corner, the passage way continued. I continued going, picking up my pace.
As far as the eye could see, there was neither left turn nor right turn. Kept m
oving.
I didn't go to bed with my watch on, so I couldn't time my hour. But I was nervo
us enough to be moving pretty quick - after that endless straight passage turned
into a left, then another immediate left I nearly collided into, then another s
traight passage that went on for a long while, I felt sweat began to glue my fli
msy pajama top to my chest. The long passageway became a right. This is the easy
part, I thought, as I took the turn. No choices to make, just have to keep goin
g.
Finally, a turn right entered me into a rectangular stone room, with a square po
ol filled with water in the middle. There were three other exits, aside from the
one right behind me. The weather all the while had been gradually changing, and
what had started as a sunny morning had progressed into one that was overcast.
A cover of clouds had come to shroud the sun, and a faint wind was blowing. The
sun was too dim through the clouds to cast proper shadows, and in fact, you coul
d almost look at it. I approached the pool, and looked down. An orb-like sun rip
pled in the water. In the middle of the pool was a plinth, supporting the bust o
f some sort of a god, with ram's horns. He had a malevolently merry expression o
n his face, and seemed to be looking sidelong at one of the exits.
I walked around the room and looked through each of the remaining exits. There w
as nothing in particular to distinguish any one exits from any of the others - t
hey were all identical. Except that the bust of that god seemed to be looking do
wn one in particular. Should I follow that path, or choose one of the others? So
mething about the god's look was rather unsettling. I decided not to trust it, a
nd considered the other exits. Which one? I took out the cross on the necklace I
always wear to sleep, kissed it, and chose the exit on my right.
As soon as I left the previous room, and my feet touched the grass of the passag
eways again, the clouds in the sky parted for the sun, which began to shine with
a pinkish light. Responding to the light, the ivy on the walls began to grow be
fore my very eyes. In a matter of seconds, the doorway to the stone room behind
me was filled up with vines and leaves, and I had to quickly enter the passagewa
y to avoid them touching me. There was no turning back for me now. I turned righ
t and started to walk down the passageway. But in front of me, the ivy started t
o grow. It closed up the path, and started to unfurl its way towards me. I turne
d around and started to run in the opposite direction. Even though I had no time
to turn around and see, I didn't need to look. I could hear the ivy closing in
- it made a growing sound, which didn't sound like something you wanted catching

up with you at all. Running as fast as I could, I kept going down whatever open
path I had in front of me, making turns left and right whenever I had to.
Then, just as the sound seemed to be catching up with me, and I could see growin
g vines on the floor snaking up to my feet, I saw a hole in the wall to the left
, leading to another stone room. I took it immediately, and as soon as my feet h
it the stone floor, a booming sound from the sun rang through out the sky, and t
he color of the sun's light changed back to yellow. The growth sound stopped. I
looked behind me, and with relief, saw that the ivy had stopped growing. It had
stopped just at the threshold of the doorway.
On the floor of the new room was a carving of the god with ram-horns from earlie
r. This time, he had a disgusting wink on him. There were two available exits fr
om the room on either side of his horns. I walked straight ahead and over to the
wall in front of me, to a slanted stone ledge attached to it. There was an hour
glass resting on the ledge. I bent over and looked. The sand was still pouring.
Only a small upside-down cone of draining sand remained in the upper chamber. If
this was my timer, I didn't seem to have much time at all. Next to the hour gla
ss was some sort of an etching covered in sand. I blew it off. Behold - before m
e was a map of the maze. A small dot on the map centered in a room with three ex
its seemed to indicate the viewer's current location in the maze, and scanning w
ildly on either side for a path to exit the maze, my heart began to sink as I fa
iled to find one. If this map is accurate, I was nowhere near a way out, no matt
er which side of the room I picked. I looked at the hourglass again. Time was ru
nning out. Maybe a tablespoon of sand left to go. As my heart squeezed hard once
, and started pounding, I looked at the map again. Could this map be a lie? What
then?
What if I refused to play along? This whole thing could be some absurd trick. I
took the hourglass, turned it upside-down, and placed in back on the ledge. Sand
started pouring the opposite way, and the color of the sun began to change agai
n. There was another sound that rang through the sky, like a thunder crack that
made me turn around and look up, and I saw the light of the sun skipping ahead a
couple of shades to green. I looked down. The expression of the ram-god on the
floor changed behind my back into a look of bewildered shock. The ivy on the wal
ls began to shrink and shrivel, and the doorway I entered the room through clear
ed of the plants that were blocking it. That makes sense, I thought to myself, e
xiting the room that way. In green light, plants can't photosynthesize, I recall
ed from my biology textbook. Back in the passageway, I stepped through dying pla
nt material on the floor, and returned the way I came. In the other stone room,
where the pool still lapped, the ram-horned god had lost his malevolently cheerf
ul expression, as was now looking morose, and staring off into the distance at n
othing in particular. I past the room, and continued down the passage, headed in
the direction I couldn't go at first, because the way was blocked by the danger
ous ivy.
The way ended in a dead end. The only other dead end in the maze, I remarked to
myself, was at the beginning. I moved a little closer to the wall. There seemed
to be something to read behind the ivy, but I couldn't see it, since the ivy was
in the way. But the ivy looked dead and dried up. So I broke yet another rule b
y touching the wall. With both hands, I swept the ivy clean, and at my touch, th
e dessicated ivy broke and fell to the floor. Then I dusted off the remains of t
he dead plant material. It revealed, yet again, the ram-god, in relief. His eyes
were closed, and he had a sleepy expression on his face. His horns curled out f
rom the surface of the wall. Around him was a circular inscription, containing t
wo words. "The End." "Huh?" I thought. "Really? The end?!" I looked at the wall
in front of me, and at the picture of the ram-god. This must be it, I thought. I
s there any way through? I took another look, this time at the corners. When my
face got close to the edge, I felt a little breeze. What was that smell? I took
another whiff. It definitely smelled like my bathroom, which is always fragrant,

thanks to the cake of soap I've been using lately that carries its smell to a d
istance. I put my fingers around the god's horns and pulled. There was a little
bit of give, and the wall, which wasn't heavy at all, slid forwards. Encouraged,
I yanked harder.
The wall moved again, but horns also broke in my hands, leaving small craters ab
ove the god's ears. I threw the useless horns away. Then I took a look at the ho
les I created. In the center of the craters were two pin-prick holes I could see
light through. I slammed my fist into the craters, and felt the hole give. I pu
nched and punched, and the crater become loosened chunks, which broke off fell i
n. Now there were two bigger holes. I reached in, and started tearing at the wal
l. It came apart pretty easily, like plaster-of-Paris. Soon, there was a pile of
masonry at my feet and a hole I could crawl through. I crawled through. Ahead,
there was a lit-up entrance to some stairs leading downstairs somewhere misty. T
he breeze that seemed to come from that direction was fragrant, and smelt like t
hat bar of soap in my bathroom.
I followed the trail downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a door. I tried
the handle, and it opened into a dark room. I went in. The door slammed shut be
hind me, and I was left in semi-darkness. Because I had been outside the whole t
ime, my eyes couldn't adjust immediately. But I recognized where I was. I tried
walking forward, and I stumbled into a shoe. I stepped over it with my other foo
t, and kept moving until I reached a wall at the end of the room. As the shimmer
ing blackness stung my eyes with points of light, I felt the walls for a light s
witch. My fingers found one. I flicked it, and - to my greatest relief - I was b
ack in my room. My bed was right there, as if it was never in the maze! I tried
opening the door I had come through, to see if it would lead back upstairs, and
into the mist. What I found was the glimmer of the mirror in my unlit bathroom,
and the bathroom was steeped in its familiar, homey fragrance.
This is indeed the room I thought I would be lost from forever as I fought for
freedom in the maze. But here I was. I looked at the analog wall clock. 3... 42
AM. Well, might as well get back to sleep then. I turned off the light again, to
ok aim, and leaped for my bed. Grinning from cheek-to-cheek, I gathered the blan
kets around me, and curled up to sleep.
The next morning I was found dead in my bed...
*/
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