This wasn't selected #1 (Or Manec's maze)

In my quest to write more this year, I entered a fiction short story contest. Unsurprisingly, my first effort did not land me among the finalists, but it did force me to step way outside my comfort zone, both in writing and in the submission process. Bio? I didn't want to write a bio, even if it was just a paragraph. I also wasn't terribly keen on sharing the submission either.

I have issues sharing non-work writing. This blog is to work on those issues.

I entered the contest I did, because there was no entry fee. The theme was "underground", which made me remember a story I wrote in university, based on a beer-and-donair induced nightmare. I rewrote the story and submitted it, though I admit the topic was a lot less travelled in my 1993 English 100 course. Hunger what?

The actual mining activity is based on two types of mining currently performed by children in the poorest countries. I needed something terrible and there's always something in the world that's worse than what you can dream up.

So here is a weird and non-uplifting story about a fictional underground character.

Manec's Maze

Manec was full for the first time in his life. He thought about what full felt like as he rubbed misshapen fingers across his ribs, over the hard lump of food in his stomach and down into the cave in which his belly button sat. Hunger was a constant, but no matter how much he thought about the strange and wonderful things he ate this day, he couldn't imagine another bite. Not without throwing it all away by vomiting. Not when he needed his strength more than ever before.

Manec didn't know how old he was when he was moved from the water pits to the tunnels. He did know when he arrived, stretching as tall as he might, he could just graze the top of the tunnels with his fingertips. Now there were places he had to duck as he carried buckets of ore from shaft to machine. It was grueling work, all hours of the day, but it was still better than the water pits. He missed the sunshine, but he hated the water more.

Yes, the tunnels were a step up, despite the same empty gut and the bone-wrenching work. At least he was dry and could breathe without a tube in his mouth.

Now things were about to change again. To become better than Manec was fully able to comprehend, given life this far. A house, a wife, and gold to keep both. From his first day in the tunnels, Manec knew it would be so.

The new boys spoke of nothing but the Maze the day Manec arrived. Manec had never heard of the Maze. His replacement in the water pit died the day before he was to be moved and it took two days to get another child. The other new tunnel boys had received their first lesson on the Maze the night before. They were ablaze with it. The older tunnel boys slyly looked down their noses at their new and ignorant brethren. Older, bigger, and stronger, their opportunity in the Maze lay far closer.

Each year the biggest and the strongest boys from the tunnel were taken into the city to compete in the Maze as part of the Glorious Festival. Manec didn’t know what else occurred in the Glorious Festival, but he knew everything there was to know about the Maze.

The Maze was a monstrous and barbaric wonder of spinning blades, false floors, and blasts of fire. The correct path at the correct time would get a runner to the finish. All other paths and times would end in death, but to the winner came wealth, marriage, and a prize beyond measure: freedom.

The victor of the Maze was released from life in the mines and given one of luxury on the surface. In a life below grade, the tunnel boys dreamed of nothing else. They toiled without complaint, shouldered the heaviest loads, and ran when they were exhausted. The tunnels were an opportunity to train for the Maze. As the foreman said, hard work would make them strong; set them free. It was also good for thinning the competition, the weak and the sick always died. It wasn’t that the remaining boys weren’t saddened by the deaths, but dying was as common as the calluses on their twisted hands. One less boy was one more chance at winning. It was as simple as that.

Equally as simple for Manec was the knowledge he was going to win. He didn’t remember life before the mines, but he knew he had worked harder than any of the other boys since coming to the tunnels. He was bigger and stronger, and he could make more trips from the shaft to the machine than the rest of them. The foreman's stripes hadn't raked his back in ages; not since he could touch the tunnel ceiling. When it came time for monthly lessons on the Maze, Manec listened hard, keeping every word in memory. Every trick, every tip was embedded in his brain. He created rhymes of his lessons and sang them under his breath as he laboured.

Now in the dim light of the room in which they were locked, the other tunnel boys slept on pallets; their breathing ranging from soft snores to the raspy wheezes that came from inhaling the ever-present rock dust. There were no windows in the room, but there was a sweetness in the air that only comes above ground. Manec hadn’t been on the surface since he left the water pits. The tunnel boys live underground, but his thoughts turned more and more to the surface as the pain from his stretched belly eased.

He wondered if there was a way he could see the sky before the Maze. Manec new the layout of the Maze inside and out, but he knew nothing of the structure around it. Perhaps in the morning, a shaft of light would shine through a gap in the mortar through which he could see outside. As one who would soon control his own destiny, Manec picked the section of the wall that looked the worst for wear, and tucked himself and his pallet as close as he could. If there was a chance of sun, he was going to see it.

Manec didn’t know it yet, but his desire to see the sky would change the course of his life. Because he didn’t know, he fell asleep.

“Ain’t no one wins the Maze”, a man’s voice rang through the wall some hours later, waking Manec. The words so foul in his ears, no one wins the Maze, snapped him to attention. Sure enough, last night’s bed positioning did turn into this morning’s crack in the mortar. He could see the faint rays of dawn creeping through the opening. He pressed his face to the crack, only to rear back as liquid splashed and the smell of piss filled his nostrils.

“What do you mean no one wins?” Asked a second voice with a different accent.

Despite what was obviously someone urinating on the other side of the wall, Manec shoved his ear to the crack. If it was about the Maze, he had to know what they were saying. A little piss was nothing. Winning was everything.

“Do you really think they’d let a miner become a freeman?” First Voice said. “To let any freeman think there is any route, no matter how impossible, back from being cast into the mines?” He sounded assured, like he knew what he was talking about. And a little drunk.

“Well then why have the damned thing if nobody can win it?” Second Voice asked. His speech was also slightly slurred. The Glorious Festival was evidently in full swing.

“Order!” Says First Voice. “The PM has to maintain order! Once you’re in the mine, there is no escaping the mine. Not for you, not for anyone in your family. You all live in the mines, you all suffer in the mines, and you all die in the mines. It’s how he owns us all."

A puff of mortar dust falls to land on Manec’s cheek from someone striking the wall on the other side. A second stream of urine joins the first. It trickles through the crack in the mortar to which Manec’s ear is pressed. He does not move.

“So why do the miners do it?” Asks Second Voice. “I saw them earlier and the scrawny bleached out bastards were reveling in it. Proud as peacocks they were.”

Manec flinched. He didn’t know what a peacock was, or what revelry meant, but he knew what scrawny bleached out bastard meant. He’d heard it for a long time. It meant tunnel boy.

First Voice cracked a loud laugh. “Order! They tell the poor bastards they can beat the Maze and it keeps them in line till they grow too big to work the tunnels. Then––” First Voice finished his sentence with a gesture Manec couldn’t see, but he felt he understood the gist of it.

No no no no no! Thought Manec. This cannot be true.

Manec wanted the men to stay and keep talking, but the steady streams were turning to spurts and drips. Their business at the wall was nearly finished.

"Come old man, I fancy another drink before the slaughter,” said First Voice. "If we make it quick one, we can still get good seats."

“What?” Asked Voice Two, doubtfully. “After all you just said, you still want to go?”

“Yes, man!” Exclaimed Voice One. “They ain’t my family. I’d kill my own family before I’d ever let them rot down there. And I’d sure as hell kill any family member of mine who threatened to put me down there.”

Manec heard the rustle of clothing being adjusted. “Besides, a few of those scrawny bastards make it a good long ways before they bite it.”

There was the sound of shoes crunching gravel as the conversation moved away. The last thing Manec heard was “I want to see if anyone makes it further than last year."

Manec fell on his back and hot bitter tears leaked down the sides of his face to soak into the rough weave of the pallet. It was the first time Manec had cried since the water pits. He lay there and wept until the guards came to collect the boys for the Maze.

The boys were shuffled through corridor after corridor until they came to a circular room. Sunlight streamed through a hole in the ceiling. The tunnel boys were near blind in the bright light, blinking like cattle in a feedlot. Instinctively, they edged up against the wall, away from the light that hurt their eyes. All but Manec, who walked to the center to stand in the circle of light.

He had to know for sure if that man was telling the truth about the Maze, but how?

As Manec wracked his brains, a guard carrying a bag entered the room.

“Listen up, boys!” The guard shouted out. “Reach into this bag and grab one ball. The ball you draw has a number on it. You all remember numbers, don’t you?”

The boys nodded. None of them could read, but numbers were a part of their Maze lessons. Numbers were also needed in the mine.

“Good!” The guard said. “When your number is called, go through that door,” pointing to the opening across from the one where the boys entered.

Some of the boys rushed to collect their number. Others hung back and had to be prompted to put their hand in the bag. Manec stood in his pool of light until all the other boys had drawn their numbers. How to be sure?

“Hey, idiot!” Shouted the guard. “Get your number.” Manec drew the last ball from the bag and the guard retreated from the room.

Manec looked at the number in his hand. A two. Using his fingers, he counted 19 boys in the room including him. How to be sure, he thought again.

He looked at the boys. Some were animated, wholly invigorated by what was about to happen. They razzed one another on. A listless few stared vacantly at the opposite wall. For them, today was no different from yesterday or the day before. They were only what they were told. Two of the boys looked positively sick.

Manec approached the closest sickly one. “What number do you have? He asked.

The boy held up a trembling fist, opening it to reveal a one. “Good luck, my brother,” whispered Manec, clasping him on the shoulder before he headed to the other stricken boy.

“What number do you have?” Manec repeated. The boy held out his hands to show a 19 cradled within. He was shaking so badly he needed both hands to hold the ball.  Manec said, “I’m a two, trade with me. You won’t have to wait.” The boy nodded and they traded.

Manec, now last, returned to his place in the sun and settled himself cross-legged to wait for his number to be called.

A guard poked his head through the entranceway and called out for number one. Pale and drawn, number one walked through the opening. The boys could hear the roar of the spectators minutes later, a furor that ended almost as soon as it started.

The guard called number two.

The scene repeated itself. Sometimes it was only minutes before the guard returned, sometime stretched closer to half an hour; and sometimes the guard had to drag a screaming boy by his ear through the door.

Eventually Manec was alone in the room. His question of how he would know answered. His plan in order.

“Nineteen!” The guard called out. Manec rose and followed the guard to the start of the Maze.

As his lessons instructed, the Maze started from a raised platform. From the high vantage point, Manec could see it laid out in all of its barbaric glory. Vicious spinning blades jutted out of walls, teeth glinting in the sun. Burst of flames screamed up from the floor at random intervals. Elsewhere, massive axes swooped down from overhanging beams. It was the stuff of nightmares.

But Manec wasn’t scared. He knew exactly what he was doing. When the bell sounded, Manec took his time weaving through the hazards. All was exactly as laid out in his hard-learned lessons. He knew right where he needed to be.

When he reached the highest point in the Maze, he stopped and looked out at the spectators. They were cheering wildly for him. He looked upwards and saw the sun and the sky through the vast opening of the stadium roof. It was breathtaking. For the second time today, Manec’s eyes welled up. This time for the beauty of it. The clarity he felt.

He heard the cheers turn to jeers as he remained still, rejoicing in the feel of the sun on his face. The crowd, deprived of their spectacle, quickly turned mean, screaming for his head. He heard shouts for the guards, but still he stood there.

For the first time in his life, Manec was not doing as he was told. From the moment the bell rang his actions, every step, every leap and every pause, were as he chose. It wasn’t until he heard the footfalls of the guards closing in that Manec roused himself. He stepped forward and raised his gnarled fingers to the sky. He looked up to the sun, took a long deep breath of sweet surface air, and leapt forward into the spinning blades below.