Icarus
Oh, my son.
He’d always been a bright and clever boy, always watching me work, even when he was young. In those days, I was a prisoner to no king and free to create at leisure, making clockwork toys with gears and miniature galleys which sailed in the ocean to entertain him. I would leave each newest contraption with him and let him roam the workshop with those little wooden soldiers and complicated puzzles, yet no more than five minutes after I left him to his play, he would be by my side, watching.
“Are you not entertained by the toys I made?” I would ask, wondering how I could make them better. Were they too dull? Too spartan? But he would just shake his head, watching me as I designed and created, as I burned with the idea of this one or that one, never without an idea for long. There were tools to fell the trees, machines to harness the wind and water, and more - my accomplishments were beginning to grow, and I could design what I wanted to, choose from what was interesting.
Often, though, the most intriguing were the ideas he would come up with.
“Father,” he said to me one day, “make me a bird, one that can fly by itself.”
“Anything,” I said, “for my wonderful son.”
-
As my son grew older, I was called on more and more for requests that were ever more interesting. Those in power wanted more than just a more efficient saw, or a better windmill; they wanted things that had never been designed before.
A lady came to me, in the middle of the night, without the knowledge of her husband, and requested something...unique. Unnatural, without doubt. But it was also something that no one had done before, something that presented a singular challenge. A wooden cow, she desired, one that had to be to exact specifications - it had to look normal and natural from all sides like a live cow, and yet be hollow inside, so that a person could fit into it. It had to be perfect; she said, and even, if possible, allow the person inside to move around, to wear it as if it was a second body.
I accepted this task, knowing that I was the only one in the world that could accomplish it.
Time and time again, I made something that was, in my mind, close enough, and time and time again, she rejected it, saying it was not perfect enough, not real enough, that there was not enough room for a person climb in. Time and time again, my son would ask me to play with him, or perhaps make him a toy, and I would tell him to play with what he had, to find new things to do, to explore, because I was so close to getting it right. I would play with him after I finished, of course. It took me years, but eventually, I got every detail perfect: when placed in a field, it looked like all the other cows; when opened with a hinge in the belly, a person could crawl inside and be comfortable.
And then, of course, the lady - the queen - became pregnant with a monster.
The king came for me after it was born, and required, demanded of me that I fix it, that I create something which would chain the beast, to bind it where it would never be found. He gave me a challenge - a maze to contain the monster, one from which only I could know the solution. It had to be so hard, he said, that no one else could solve it.
It was irresistible.
For the next three years, I again fell into a single project, an ambitious one where I alone could know of the details as it was being constructed, where I alone had to wander the walls to make sure there would be no stray marks left, that they were erected exactly where they needed to be. I came home late, if I did at all, and left early, because I needed to be there for every stone laid.
“Father,” he said to me one evening, “can you make me a kite? It has been so long since I’ve flown them in the sky.”
And where once I would’ve accepted without a second thought, I was tired, and I had to keep the structure of the maze in my head. I had no time.
“I cannot, my son; play with what you have already. Explore them in new and interesting ways. Push your boundaries.” I responded, and he seem pacified and did not ask me again.
I did not see him much after that, for the maze was nearing completion. It was finished as the king had demanded it to be, and I resolved that my time serving him would be over. I went to the king, then, to ask to be let go, thinking that my penance was served.
His response, of course, was to make me a prisoner, saying the knowledge I kept was too dangerous. We would be constrained to a tower, never be free from the island.
-
He was seventeen when he came up with the idea that would set us free.
“Wings, father - we have the feathers from the doves that roost in the tower. We have the wax from the candles that light the darkness, when the king asks you to look over his crafters’ designs. We could fly free - like the birds you made me when I was young. Is it not possible?”
And a fire burned in me again that had gone out since the creation of the Labyrinth, and I resolved to perfect his idea. The frames would be the slender twigs from the cypress, lashed together; the feathers would be patterned together, with the small feathers between the large, and the wax would be applied in many layers, but lightly, so that the feathers would not be stiff.
Day and night, I toiled on it; I was up before he was awake, and retired long after he was asleep, and the days would pass with few words between us, such was my degree of focus in this work. As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I labored, until one day, finally, they were ready. They were wings that the gods themselves would have been delighted to receive, gloriously white against the grimy darkness of the tower. We strapped them on to our arms and beat them them a few times; even in the dead air of the room, they could sustain us above the ground.
After three years of captivity, we would be free.
It was dawn when we set out, white wings flashing open across the new day. It was effortless, the way that we flitted across the sky, rising on thermals and gliding across the island, and then across the sea. It was being elevated to the height of the gods themselves.
After we had been flying for a while, he started seeing if he could spin, and dive, and rise higher and higher. I warned him about going too low or high - the saltwater could make the wings too heavy; the sun could melt the wax.
“I’m just exploring, father,” he said, “Pushing the limits of these appendages, as you told me to do before. We could make much use for future military purposes, for scouting, even for the pure pleasure of flight,” and he went on, climbing and diving as I flew steadily on. After a while, though, he quieted, and we traveled in silence across the sea. There were enough thermals, I noticed, that we could glide effortless for long distances, and perhaps even sleep.
I might have, for a time. All I know is that he was ahead of me, and he seemed to be flapping harder than me. And then I saw them; the feathers, floating through the brilliant azure sky.
They were slowly sliding out from the wings, one or two at a time; I looked down, and the ocean had a trail of them. I shouted, and he heard my cry; but he didn’t turn around; when I powered ahead and drew level, I saw that he couldn’t spare the effort, that he was tired, that he had been flapping harder with every fall of his crumbling wings.
“Father,” he said, “I didn’t... want to...wake you. There’s nothing that...can be done. If you try and save me, we’ll both die.”
“My son-” I started, only to watch as a large chunk of feathers started sliding out of the frame with each flap. I looked, desperately, and saw nothing but sea all around us.
I despaired.
“Father-” he said, and then he fell.
-
He would’ve been twenty-two now.
I hear the tales of the labyrinth I build, still; I hear stories of the tools that I have created and how they are like gifts from the gods themselves, and while it pleases me, I would give all of it back for him, my lost son. If I had spent one more day with him, instead of with my ideas, I might still have both.
He’d always been a bright and clever boy, always watching me work, even when he was young. In those days, I was a prisoner to no king and free to create at leisure, making clockwork toys with gears and miniature galleys which sailed in the ocean to entertain him. I would leave each newest contraption with him and let him roam the workshop with those little wooden soldiers and complicated puzzles, yet no more than five minutes after I left him to his play, he would be by my side, watching.
“Are you not entertained by the toys I made?” I would ask, wondering how I could make them better. Were they too dull? Too spartan? But he would just shake his head, watching me as I designed and created, as I burned with the idea of this one or that one, never without an idea for long. There were tools to fell the trees, machines to harness the wind and water, and more - my accomplishments were beginning to grow, and I could design what I wanted to, choose from what was interesting.
Often, though, the most intriguing were the ideas he would come up with.
“Father,” he said to me one day, “make me a bird, one that can fly by itself.”
“Anything,” I said, “for my wonderful son.”
-
As my son grew older, I was called on more and more for requests that were ever more interesting. Those in power wanted more than just a more efficient saw, or a better windmill; they wanted things that had never been designed before.
A lady came to me, in the middle of the night, without the knowledge of her husband, and requested something...unique. Unnatural, without doubt. But it was also something that no one had done before, something that presented a singular challenge. A wooden cow, she desired, one that had to be to exact specifications - it had to look normal and natural from all sides like a live cow, and yet be hollow inside, so that a person could fit into it. It had to be perfect; she said, and even, if possible, allow the person inside to move around, to wear it as if it was a second body.
I accepted this task, knowing that I was the only one in the world that could accomplish it.
Time and time again, I made something that was, in my mind, close enough, and time and time again, she rejected it, saying it was not perfect enough, not real enough, that there was not enough room for a person climb in. Time and time again, my son would ask me to play with him, or perhaps make him a toy, and I would tell him to play with what he had, to find new things to do, to explore, because I was so close to getting it right. I would play with him after I finished, of course. It took me years, but eventually, I got every detail perfect: when placed in a field, it looked like all the other cows; when opened with a hinge in the belly, a person could crawl inside and be comfortable.
And then, of course, the lady - the queen - became pregnant with a monster.
The king came for me after it was born, and required, demanded of me that I fix it, that I create something which would chain the beast, to bind it where it would never be found. He gave me a challenge - a maze to contain the monster, one from which only I could know the solution. It had to be so hard, he said, that no one else could solve it.
It was irresistible.
For the next three years, I again fell into a single project, an ambitious one where I alone could know of the details as it was being constructed, where I alone had to wander the walls to make sure there would be no stray marks left, that they were erected exactly where they needed to be. I came home late, if I did at all, and left early, because I needed to be there for every stone laid.
“Father,” he said to me one evening, “can you make me a kite? It has been so long since I’ve flown them in the sky.”
And where once I would’ve accepted without a second thought, I was tired, and I had to keep the structure of the maze in my head. I had no time.
“I cannot, my son; play with what you have already. Explore them in new and interesting ways. Push your boundaries.” I responded, and he seem pacified and did not ask me again.
I did not see him much after that, for the maze was nearing completion. It was finished as the king had demanded it to be, and I resolved that my time serving him would be over. I went to the king, then, to ask to be let go, thinking that my penance was served.
His response, of course, was to make me a prisoner, saying the knowledge I kept was too dangerous. We would be constrained to a tower, never be free from the island.
-
He was seventeen when he came up with the idea that would set us free.
“Wings, father - we have the feathers from the doves that roost in the tower. We have the wax from the candles that light the darkness, when the king asks you to look over his crafters’ designs. We could fly free - like the birds you made me when I was young. Is it not possible?”
And a fire burned in me again that had gone out since the creation of the Labyrinth, and I resolved to perfect his idea. The frames would be the slender twigs from the cypress, lashed together; the feathers would be patterned together, with the small feathers between the large, and the wax would be applied in many layers, but lightly, so that the feathers would not be stiff.
Day and night, I toiled on it; I was up before he was awake, and retired long after he was asleep, and the days would pass with few words between us, such was my degree of focus in this work. As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I labored, until one day, finally, they were ready. They were wings that the gods themselves would have been delighted to receive, gloriously white against the grimy darkness of the tower. We strapped them on to our arms and beat them them a few times; even in the dead air of the room, they could sustain us above the ground.
After three years of captivity, we would be free.
It was dawn when we set out, white wings flashing open across the new day. It was effortless, the way that we flitted across the sky, rising on thermals and gliding across the island, and then across the sea. It was being elevated to the height of the gods themselves.
After we had been flying for a while, he started seeing if he could spin, and dive, and rise higher and higher. I warned him about going too low or high - the saltwater could make the wings too heavy; the sun could melt the wax.
“I’m just exploring, father,” he said, “Pushing the limits of these appendages, as you told me to do before. We could make much use for future military purposes, for scouting, even for the pure pleasure of flight,” and he went on, climbing and diving as I flew steadily on. After a while, though, he quieted, and we traveled in silence across the sea. There were enough thermals, I noticed, that we could glide effortless for long distances, and perhaps even sleep.
I might have, for a time. All I know is that he was ahead of me, and he seemed to be flapping harder than me. And then I saw them; the feathers, floating through the brilliant azure sky.
They were slowly sliding out from the wings, one or two at a time; I looked down, and the ocean had a trail of them. I shouted, and he heard my cry; but he didn’t turn around; when I powered ahead and drew level, I saw that he couldn’t spare the effort, that he was tired, that he had been flapping harder with every fall of his crumbling wings.
“Father,” he said, “I didn’t... want to...wake you. There’s nothing that...can be done. If you try and save me, we’ll both die.”
“My son-” I started, only to watch as a large chunk of feathers started sliding out of the frame with each flap. I looked, desperately, and saw nothing but sea all around us.
I despaired.
“Father-” he said, and then he fell.
-
He would’ve been twenty-two now.
I hear the tales of the labyrinth I build, still; I hear stories of the tools that I have created and how they are like gifts from the gods themselves, and while it pleases me, I would give all of it back for him, my lost son. If I had spent one more day with him, instead of with my ideas, I might still have both.