Korridorium

♫ From the Bön Scrip­tures ♫

4/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor lead­ing into the labyrinth that I will nev­er leave again. Daedalus stands behind me, smil­ing proud­ly. He has spent months con­struct­ing it and out­fit­ting it for me. He calls it a “Palace.”

“I will die of thirst and star­va­tion,” I say. Daedalus shakes his head. “You won’t. Down in the base­ment of the palace, there is a spring. There are court­yards with numer­ous fruit trees, and there is a damp vault where count­less mush­rooms grow.”

“I will be lone­ly,” I pre­dict gloomi­ly. Daedalus coun­ters: “We will send you enter­tain­ment from time to time. Young men and maid­ens from our vas­sal states, whom you can treat how­ev­er you wish.”

“Meat,” I say. “As you wish,” says Daedalus.

“I will long for free­dom and go mad.” Daedalus seems unim­pressed. “You won’t. The Palace will seem infi­nite­ly vast to you; you will con­stant­ly dis­cov­er new rooms and encounter new won­ders. I have ensured that you can cre­ate a struc­tured dai­ly rou­tine with every­thing you like to do. It begins with a large, soft bed of straw, next to which I have placed a small bell. As soon as the sun ris­es, a mech­a­nism will strike it. The chim­ing will grow loud­er and loud­er until you final­ly get up.” When he hears me groan, he adds: “How­ev­er, if you would like to sleep a lit­tle longer, you can use a small lever to make the mech­a­nism stop the bell from strik­ing for a while.”

“Inven­tions…” I say dis­mis­sive­ly. “That is all you can do: think up mech­a­nisms and devices. But what about peo­ple and their feel­ings?”

“You are not a human. At least, not quite.” But when he notices tears welling in my eyes, he has­tens to add: “But I have thought of your feel­ings too, my dear fel­low.”

I look at him hope­ful­ly as he stands there in the entrance to the cor­ri­dor, the blue sky and the sea behind him—the free­dom I am now per­mit­ted to see, smell, and hear for the last time.

“I know,” says Daedalus, “that the king­ship should right­ful­ly be yours. That a… cru­el fate denies you your inher­i­tance and birthright.” He for­gets to men­tion that he was the one who brought this fate about. Nonethe­less, I lis­ten expec­tant­ly to his words. What has he intend­ed for me?

“In your Palace,” he says, “you will find a bal­cony that opens onto a large square. There, you can present your­self and give speech­es. And when you pull the wood­en han­dle you see next to the rail­ing, your peo­ple will applaud and cheer you from many throats.”

“My peo­ple?”

“That is what it will sound like, yes. I spent a long time tin­ker­ing with the hydraulics.”

I sag. Anoth­er mechan­i­cal device, a decoy like the one my father, the bull, fell for.

“You’ll like it. I’m quite sure of it!”

Daedalus smiles at me encour­ag­ing­ly. He takes a step back into the open air and throws a lever. With a grind­ing sound, a sec­tion of the wall descends to seal the cor­ri­dor. I could mark this spot—carve a cross into the wall with my horns so I can find it and destroy it lat­er. But I am cer­tain Daedalus has thought of that, too, and devised ways and means to pre­vent me, to con­fuse and fool me, mak­ing me a pris­on­er in this Palace for­ev­er.

He bends down to wave at me one last time from under the slow­ly descend­ing wall.

“Don’t be sad! You know…” he calls out.

“It’s for the best for every­one,” I repeat obe­di­ent­ly, as he has always drilled into me, “includ­ing me.” Daedalus nods, smil­ing. Then he is gone behind the wall. With a thud, it seals the cor­ri­dor as if it had always been there.

I feel a bit deject­ed. Final­ly, I turn around and enter my Palace in search of the bal­cony.

♫ Trea­sure Chest Dwellers ♫

6/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor where the anti­quar­i­an stores his unsaleable arti­facts. He acts as if it’s a great hon­or to be led back here. With flow­ery lan­guage, he describes what he sup­pos­ed­ly will nev­er find a buy­er for, but also can­not bring him­self to sim­ply throw away:

An elixir of immor­tal­i­ty that does­n’t pre­vent aging. (Might be some­thing for one’s worst enemy—or per­haps a wife, if one wants to be sure of being well cared for in old age, the anti­quar­i­an says with a know­ing smile. I wave him off.)

A cloak of invis­i­bil­i­ty that only makes the wear­er invis­i­ble from the knees up. (Could be use­ful in tall grass, the anti­quar­i­an mus­es. I wave him off.)

A fly­ing car­pet that lit­er­al­ly only moves at a snail’s pace. (Then again, it only ris­es a few inch­es off the ground, at most, the anti­quar­i­an remarks, purs­ing his lips. I wave him off.)

A mag­ic key that, while unable to open doors, can lock them for­ev­er. (He should per­haps inquire with the nuclear indus­try, the anti­quar­i­an says, feign­ing thought­ful­ness as if the idea had just occurred to him. I wave him off.)

A vial of truth serum that has the side effect of reveal­ing the truth in painstak­ing, minute detail, caus­ing the vic­tim to get hope­less­ly lost in the specifics with­out ever reach­ing the point. (Some­times he has the impres­sion the brew is being used on cer­tain TV talk shows, the anti­quar­i­an says with a strained laugh. I wave him off.)

The Ark of the Covenant, which is actu­al­ly a quan­tum-mechan­i­cal radio for call­ing God. (The bib­li­cal Jeho­vah, that is, the anti­quar­i­an explains jovial­ly, adding that He has­n’t picked up the phone in quite some time. He smiles sly­ly: “no answer­ing machine.” I wave him off.)

A love potion that caus­es who­ev­er drinks it to fall into an immor­tal love with them­selves. (Which, for many dis­il­lu­sioned by love, the anti­quar­i­an says, glanc­ing side­ways at me, actu­al­ly sounds like the per­fect, sus­tain­able solu­tion. I wave him off.)

A book that, when opened, writes itself in that very moment. (But it only ever con­tains short, mud­dled sto­ries about some­one enter­ing hall­ways or cor­ri­dors or something—no, it always says “colonnades”—in any case, nobody can make heads or tails of the scrib­bles, the anti­quar­i­an grum­bles sul­len­ly. I ask how much he wants for it.)

♫ Hyp­not­ic Attic ♫

10/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor and open the door to the liv­ing room. How­ev­er, in this room, noth­ing is real­ly what it seems to be.

For instance, the door is, in real­i­ty, a book titled “Snow­men Rarely Make Good Cig­a­rette Lighters.” The arm­chair is a traf­fic war­den named Edna Gierke. The oth­er chair is a stool, but the fam­i­ly always calls it “the ottoman.” The grand­fa­ther clock is a dis­play case for the patri­arch Was­muth’s col­lec­tion of algae schnitzels, which looks like a lamp­shade but is, in fact, the room’s car­pet.

For instance, the door is, in real­i­ty, a book titled Snow­men Rarely Make Good Cig­a­rette Lighters. The arm­chair is a meter maid named Edna Gierke. The oth­er chair is a stool, but the fam­i­ly always calls it “the ottoman.” The grand­fa­ther clock is a dis­play case for the patri­arch Was­muth’s col­lec­tion of algae schnitzels; Was­muth him­self looks like a lamp­shade but is, in fact, the room’s car­pet.

The piano, strict­ly speak­ing, is a spinet made by the Gell­wiesen com­pa­ny, now known in the USA as BELLOWMEADOW for its exquis­ite cook­ies. The blue wall col­or is the smell of boiled cab­bage, and the paint­ing on the wall is a pho­to of Mir­na and her kit­ten, titled Women and Cats First. Did I for­get some­thing? Yes, the man stand­ing lost in the room is indeed the bailiff; how­ev­er, his name is Her­bert Brün­nchen, and he entered through the light switch, which is actu­al­ly the kitchen pass-through.

The liv­ing room itself, just to men­tion it, may seem like an enclosed space, but it’s actu­al­ly a news­pa­per arti­cle with the sen­sa­tion­al head­line, “Is the Whole of Schwabin­gen Infest­ed with Trichinel­la?”

♫ No Wool­gath­er­ing Allowed ♫

13/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor: chairs for those wait­ing line the walls between the doors, each door topped by a dig­i­tal dis­play. Every seat is tak­en. I read 312 on one of the dis­plays, 313 on anoth­er, and the third one is just skip­ping from 311 to 315. I glance at the slip of paper in my hand. 288. I should­n’t have daw­dled! In any case, I’ve obvi­ous­ly missed my call.

I turn around, want­i­ng to go back and draw a new num­ber in the foy­er. How­ev­er, above the door I just used to enter the cor­ri­dor, there is anoth­er dis­play: 314. For a moment, I’m con­fused. There’s no oth­er exit, and—I look around once more with a search­ing eye—no tick­et machine either. But I’m not giv­ing up that eas­i­ly.

The 314 above me clicks over to 316. A young man stands up. This is my chance. But when he real­izes that I’m try­ing to squeeze through the door­way with him, he flash­es me a dis­dain­ful look and blocks the crack in the door until the very last sec­ond. He pulls the door shut behind him with delib­er­ate force, fast and hard.

I size up the oth­ers wait­ing there. Most of them are star­ing into space. Some absent­mind­ed­ly roll their slips into tight lit­tle tubes or fold them up. A few teenagers are in the mix, engrossed in their smart­phones or furi­ous­ly mash­ing the but­tons on a PSP with their thumbs.

A chair opens up. I take a seat, quick­ly dis­miss­ing the idea of steal­ing some­one else’s num­ber. The dis­plays only go up to three dig­its. Even­tu­al­ly, they’ll hit 999. And then every­thing will start all over again. I clutch my slip tight­ly. My time will come.

♫ March of the Mon­u­ments ♫

14/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. My old joints ache, but I nev­er fal­ter in mak­ing my dai­ly rounds, lead­ing me through the secret cor­ri­dor deep into Olym­pus, where a hid­den vault­ed hall lies. Here, in a sev­en-thou­sand-year slum­ber, lie elves, dwarves, drag­ons, gnomes, trolls, uni­corns, the roc, cyclopes, cen­taurs, genies, and guardian angels. They are wait­ing out the reign of humans—uncouth, dim-wit­ted, lum­ber­ing fig­ures who cre­ate dis­or­der and sow dis­cord on the sur­face of the Earth.

Some­times, one of the Ancient Beings opens its eyes, think­ing it is caught in a heavy dream. I then sit by its side and sing one of the old lul­la­bies. It won’t be long now, and the age of humans will come to an end. Once they are gone and the right­ful guardians of the Earth have wiped the sleep from their eyes, my ninth life will final­ly draw to a close. I will walk through the cor­ri­dor one last time on aching paws, lead­ing the way to show them the hid­den exit from which they can descend from Olym­pus.

♫ Uvs Nuur ♫

16/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. The thread run­ning through it, I wind tighter and tighter; I already have a sub­stan­tial ball in my hand. I see the thread dis­ap­pear­ing under one of the doors. Here I will find her; here she is wait­ing for me! I toss the ball aside care­less­ly and rush to the door, which is indis­tin­guish­able from the count­less oth­ers. As I open it and hur­ry through with her name on my lips, a crea­ture with a bull’s head con­fronts me. With one of its horns, it tears open the flesh of my chest, lay­ing bare my heart. I fall to the ground. “He is my broth­er, after all,” I hear her voice, very close to my ear.

How many before me? And how many more will they lure? And all that end­less blood… The water­fall in my ears grows loud­er and loud­er, until there is only an all-con­sum­ing roar that mer­ci­ful­ly takes me in.

♫ Jólagjöf ♫

21/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. 24 lit­tle doors. Behind the last one, a piece of choco­late awaits me. I already know that from the past few years.

♫ Enmeshed in Clouds (Wood­stock Mix) ♫

26/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor. A live­ly bus­tle reigns here. A woman in col­or­ful, flow­ing robes greets me with a smile and a kiss on the fore­head. She leads me to her friends, who are gath­ered with some chil­dren around a fire, singing, danc­ing, and roast­ing marsh­mal­lows. I clear­ly please oth­er women in the group as well. They feel me, nes­tle against me, and weave flow­ers into my hair. As I try to move on, one of them pulls me to the ground and offers me a smol­der­ing lit­tle roll of paper. The cor­ri­dor doors—I see now—have been paint­ed with fan­ta­sy worlds, man­dalas, and flo­ral gar­lands.

I promised my peo­ple I would not halt my search until I recov­ered the Tju­run­ga, with­out which our shaman is pow­er­less. And yet: Can I not linger for a moment to recov­er from the rig­ors of the trek? Per­haps I should learn the lan­guage of these peo­ple and find out what awaits me at the end of the corridor—and behind the many doors they haven’t opened in years, decades, or per­haps ever. The cheer­ful mood of these peo­ple is infec­tious. Yes, I’ll stay. I nod to the women, let­ting them know I accept their kind invi­ta­tion. Per­haps I will find the Tju­run­ga here among them after all. A wave of dizzi­ness wash­es over me from all the new impres­sions. The smol­der­ing paper stem has burned down, and some­how, I know the smoke will nev­er taste bit­ter again.

♫ Moravec’s Para­dox ♫

27/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, illu­mi­nat­ing the low vault­ed ceil­ings with my torch. As a tal­is­man, I car­ry the ancient “Scroll of the Hid­den Cham­ber” with me. The draw­ings on the walls are fad­ed, but oth­er­wise com­plete­ly pre­served. I am look­ing for the pharao­h’s car­touche. It must be here some­where. I deci­pher, “Behold my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Ozy­man­dias? But the tomb of Ram­ses the Great was already dis­cov­ered here in the Val­ley of the Kings a long time ago! Per­haps one of his sons is buried here.

My mus­ings are inter­rupt­ed: A muf­fled sound caus­es me and my Egypt­ian helpers to whirl around. The ground beneath us trem­bles. The gigan­tic stone slab, whose pur­pose we had puz­zled over dur­ing the exca­va­tion, has slid down behind us. The entrance is sealed. Even with dyna­mite, we would­n’t be able to get out now.

My helpers, after a brief, des­per­ate pan­ic, col­lapse to the ground, whim­per­ing. I, how­ev­er, walk on. An unopened tomb that has elud­ed grave rob­bers for mil­len­nia – and I am the dis­cov­er­er! As long as there is air to breathe, I want to dis­cov­er if the bur­ial trea­sures are tru­ly untouched. Per­haps I will behold the hoped-for rich­es with my own eyes before my torch is extin­guished for­ev­er.

♫ Infin­i­ty Shuf­fle ♫

28/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor and imme­di­ate­ly jot it down in my jour­nal: “I enter the cor­ri­dor.” Since I start­ed using a tablet instead of a note­book and pen, I can record what I do and experience—how I spend my day—much more direct­ly and in real-time. I can also share every­thing impor­tant as a tweet right away. Before going to sleep, I can retrace my dai­ly rou­tine on my Twit­ter account, divid­ed into small frag­ments.

What did I come in here for? Oh, right, I’m look­ing for the tablet’s charg­ing cable. It says so right here: “I’ve mis­placed the tablet charg­er. Maybe it’s in the kitchen.” I can’t find it any­where in the kitchen. “But in the kitchen, I can’t find it…” But now the tablet makes a strange elec­tron­ic noise, drop­ping in pitch, like a dis­ap­point­ed “Oohch.” I’d love to note and tweet that, since I’m hear­ing it for the first time and it obvi­ous­ly needs to be doc­u­ment­ed, but now the thing won’t accept input on the vir­tu­al key­board; instead, it saves the text as a last-resort emer­gency mea­sure and shuts down.

What now?! How am I sup­posed to write this down? In the kitchen, there’s a roll of paper tow­els, and in a draw­er, I find a pen next to some tealights. I need to record all of this! But the pen won’t write on the paper tow­el. I lick it, shake it, the whole nine yards, but it just won’t work. All of this is at risk of being lost because I can’t write it down. My eyes fall on the cut­ting board. Could I carve some­thing into it with a knife? At least some key­words? So much has hap­pened already. Prep­ping paper tow­els, lick­ing the pen, con­sid­er­ing the cut­ting board… How am I sup­posed to remem­ber all of this? And on top of that, try­ing to mem­o­rize the act of mem­o­riz­ing! I need to find that cable; that much is clear. All my thoughts, the excite­ment, my actions—just when things are final­ly get­ting dra­mat­ic and life is real­ly pop­ping off, I can’t write it down, let alone tweet it!

I final­ly dis­cov­er the charg­er while search­ing for a pen and paper in the bed­room, plugged into the out­let by the night­stand. With fin­gers already trem­bling slight­ly, I plug it in, and the tablet comes back to life.

I type as fast as I can to catch up with my life again.