Did you catch Monday's blog featuring Stefan Schmidt's novella, The Sons of Memory? This tale of Theseus brings out a lot of the old classic stylings with all the trappings of the Greek mythology, including a minotaur who needs... well, what he needs. And this story isn't shy with the details. I decided to share the excerpt from the very beginning, because as with all good stories, that sets the plot and the first glimpse of the character.  Care to check out... the maze?

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First: Gloom

A grunt in darkness. A scratching of feet, senseless uttered sounds. Water drops falling softly; a wet coolness to soothe his longing. Somewhere in his gloomy brain a cry came off. Not human, just brutish.

A roar, that craved for attention and feeding.

His finger scratched on stone. Restless he crossed the labyrinth - his labyrinth - set up to hide him from human stares.

A gnarl escaped his hairy throat and his short, strong horns thrust against the wall. His mind was tired, like his whole being, born out of a quirk of a horny woman.

His memories remained pale: a scared cry when he was born and afterwards just twilight in which the King of Crete had condemned him to live. He wasn't proud of his son, oh no! He couldn't be. What would a bull-headed man look like upon the throne of Knossos? The white bull - this was his real father; a white bull risen from the depths of the sea as a gift from Poseidon to Minos, the King of Crete. At least that's what he figured out while he was locked up in a secret room at Knossos' Palace. Pasiphae, Minos' wife fell madly in love with the white bull; with his strength, power and beauty. With the help of Daedalos, the creative inventor, she was able to mate with him and the result was he - Asterion: a baby with the head of a calf.

He remembered vaguely the brilliant colours. The red of the colour of old blood, the azure of the painted birds and of the dolphins on the palace walls. But, by Hades, what did he know about azure blue sky? His only entertainment was to look into the azure blue eyes of one of his victims. When he consumed them, inhaled them, his aching sex plunging deep between the youth's legs - spread apart by his force - the King was feeding him; first to satiate his sex drive and second to satisfy his permanent hunger.

His bowels rumbled. It was time for supplies. But in the darkness time didn't count. There was no tomorrow and no yesterday; no morning, no evening. Just timeless loneliness.

He still was cruising aimlessly; blindly finding the existence of the many ways. Something similar to laughter escaped. No human had ever found the way out. Not if he didn't want to. And he never wanted.

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