Minotaur in Hot Water

This story is the fifth in a Summer Fiction Series challenge where I scribble a short story based on a book. This story prompt includes a bull, with the concept inspired from The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. The illustrations are also created by Hannah Marie.

I had a dream that I appeared in a land foreign to me. There was desert and there was sand, not the deciduous trees that I was used to. However, it wasn’t a city. Very few buildings. I had to be far from home, not sure what I was doing. At first I tried to orient myself, but everything around me was unknown. My head felt heavy. Crowds of people milled about, not concerned with having a stranger in their midsts. I looked down and noticed that I looked mostly like them, but not quite. Something was different. In order to observe fully what had happened to me, I sauntered over to a mirror in a nearby shop. The thing reflecting back at me confirmed my worst nightmare. There I stood a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. I stood in the middle of people not as a human, but as a minotaur. I was both shocked and elated. Minotaurs are powerful!

As a quick frame of reference, a minotaur is from Greek mythology, and if you've read any classic Greek texts, or even some modern young adult fantasy, you will have encountered one of my kind. The original minotaur was the product of a human woman and a bull, which grew to enormous proportions, fated to forever wander an unending maze until it was killed by Theseus, or at least that is most of the story. That doesn't explain why I was standing in the middle of the desert. Since I was aware of the myth in that new form, I surely couldn’t be the minotaur from Greek mythology. The last I remembered, I was at an archeological dig and had passed out after a hard day's work. Besides, a minotaur has--

I turned to check my backside in the mirror before sauntering off in disgust. Sure enough, there was a tail sprouting from my rear, only confirming that this was not the type of situation that I could escape easily. Now. Let's see what I can do about this. I checked for any outward sign of panic or distrust on the faces of these humans who were so close to what my human form had been, but no expressions of fear or shock rocked their faces. I must have been wearing some disguise or invisibility cloaking. I opened my mouth to yell a warning, but the sound came out in a honking-grunt, not forming the English words necessary to explain my predicament. A couple of people tilted their heads. No help there. I wandered further into the town and encountered narrow streets, all leading back to the same area where I started. It was the maze. I'd be cursed to wander until...well, until somebody or something killed me, I guess. Something did seem to be following me. Or an echo of something.

Surely, all things considered, there had to be a way out. I turned back to the mirror that I had first gazed into, hoping the initial contact with this reflecting pool could give me some answers. In the corner was written a verse:

Underneath the mire and clay, buried deep/Lies strong answers to those you seek/Keep an eye out for the rocks that climb/Or find yourself forever trapped in time.

I shook my head in confusion and forced myself to concentrate, reading the poetic musings a second and a third time. Finally I snapped my fingers and half-smiled, half-panted as I ran over to the edge of the town where a mountain loomed, shadowing the far end of town. This seemed like a dead end, but there had to be more. I walked around the outside, glancing this way and that to be sure I hadn't been followed. This is no mystery story, I told myself, And there are no outlawed policemen after the man-beast that appears to be terrorizing their town. At least I didn't think so. I was on the verge of giving up my search when I noticed a divet near the base of one of the smaller stones. I kicked at it, wishing that I had hooves rather than human feet. I imagined my tail wrapping itself around the stone and tossing it away. It did just that, right before my eyes! I used my tail to fling the stone, which landed right on top of the nearest building. Under the stone was an arrow-like shape. The color of the dirt, or rather, mud, underneath was unmistakable. I nudged at the stone right next to the gap, using one of my large horns as persuasion. Instead of moving away from the mountain, the stone flipped, like it was attached to a rotating device. Underneath were carved words:

Find the one who is much like you, quiet and stubborn/Feed the creature until it is torn/Face the enemy without using your horns/Be sure to keep your eyes open for something other than the shore.

This one made more sense because I recalled seeing a field within a mile of the stone-filled mountain. Weirdly enough, the mountain seemed to shrink as I was reading the riddle and I was able to walk around the monstrosity with ease, keeping the town within my peripheral vision as long as possible. I passed two farmers who gave me no notice, but the two dogs with them would not stop staring and barking. The confounded farmers attempted to quiet their beasts and continued down the road. I had the feeling that something was following me, but could not catch sight of the fellow. Something was calling my name. My hooves trampled through the dirt as rain started to fall and I smelled the dirt that billowed around me. I remembered that I was still partially human when I was soaked to the bone within seconds. Fortunately, the field opened before me and I easily tore down a corner of the fence and found a docile cow staring at me with giant, brown eyes. She is mostly like me, as the riddle stated. But even though I fed her with food from my pack, corn, oats, and the like, she chewed the cud and turned from me, looking back, but deciding to wander away, most likely to avoid my eating her. I wouldn't eat animals of my own kind anyway, and I assumed that if the humans couldn't see me, I couldn't substantially attack them.

In response to my roar, a bull came tearing over the landscape, heading straight for me. I turned toward him, ready for a fight. Some primal instinct from within prompted me to get on all fours, ready for an attack. Then I recalled the second part of the poem, which reminded me to stand up again, to face my enemy. That was the hardest thing that I had to do, but trembling, I stood tall before the charging mammal, peeling my eyes for anything that could help. I screamed in minotaur language, which I hoped would translate to the bull, but he continued his rampage. Just inches before he attacked me, the bull was flooded by a tidal wave, water which splashed over both of us. Before I could wonder where the water came from in this desert land, I was immersed, trying to stay afloat. My giant minotaur head bobbled frantically, but I sank fast. No amount of floundering helped.

I jerked awake from my dream, certain that I had disturbed my wife. How did I get back to my house? She turned over with a sigh and pointed to my bedside table. "I kept trying to call you. You forgot to call Harry back," she patted my cheek and beard, no longer a monster's head, and motioned to the notepad I always kept beside me for midnight inspirations. I stared at the stories about travel and notes from daily life. Whatever caused me to mix the wild west with Greek mythology, I would never know. On the second page of my notepad, I saw a handwritten message, certainly not written by my hand:

Keep up the enthusiasm, Little One, and you'll be surprised/Sometimes stories can be found in any size/This is not the last time that you will visit this strange land/When you least expect it, you will go back to where it all began.

I sighed, shaking my head. I was stuck in a maze after all!

My tail swished in agreement.