The Saw: Part Two

The second in a series, this post retells Greek mythologies of The Saw.

Part Two: The Extinction of Talos

Talos drew a toe across wet sand. A giant letter B. Then an O an R an E and, just as the shallow suds washed in, a D. The ocean slid back and left his word behind, dimly.

He wasn’t bored, really. Solitude to a 9 year-old is unarticulated–that’s what makes it solitude.

He was charged; a current seeking a line. Hot sand heightened his senses. He stood by the rhythmic tide, busily discerning joint from muscle, hair from skin. He popped and hissed like a bundle of wires corroding in the sun.

He wasn’t naked. Talos dropped his shirt and shorts a mile back but kept the boxers. He’d only just graduated from his snug, white cottons, and thought anyone who’d question a young boy wandering alone might, upon seeing his clean plaid, think twice. But there was no one in sight so he stopped thinking at all.

Stopped thinking even of his long-armed uncle working just beyond the bluffs, his hands a furious bouquet of drafting instruments.

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Daedalus had worked through the night, trying to devise a tool that could cut through logs, metal, and bone. Two more of the King’s workers had dropped from exhaustion—their labor wasted on swinging and hacking. His tool must speed the King’s desires and spare the men. When Talos left him, Daedalus was wandering the fallen forest of a fever dream.

This is how Talos learned to treasure boredom: If he left a corner of his bed untucked, or slurped his cereal milk; stood too long at the window, or let his eyes fall unconsciously on Daedalus’ notes, he was punished. He had all his uncle’s scrutiny, and none of his attention. To complete the dysfunction, Daedalus’ punishments were as elegant and creative as his many inventions, and Talos almost looked forward to them. But the beach was safe.

Where does a child’s mind go when it’s free? Nowhere: the earth is wild. It senses itself as new growth in virgin forest: An unruly hedge of existence on all sides, soft piles of decay. It digs and climbs and swims and goes where it goes, though openings lead to shadow and paths are swallowed behind. It turns to the animals, placid and self-contained

Talos’ walking meditation was a steady descent into instinctive being. With each linear step he carved and traversed his own mandala: innocently reflected to him as tiny orbs of sunlight when he blinked. A grain of sand sat unminded on his eyeball.

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He didn’t know how much time had passed when a sudden sting tore into his mind. He winced soundlessly, jerked his knee into the air, and watched a drop of blood discolor the sand. There, stuck to the ball of his foot, was the small, sun-bleached spine of a fish.

Gently, he pulled it out and held it to his face with one hand, shading his eyes with the other. It looked like tail of an ancient arrow; it’s fletchings grown sharp and brittle. He sat and examined his foot, the blood already dry as powder. Reflexively, he pulled the delicate spine across his skin, drawing fresh blood in fine lines. Finally, a thought: These bones once nestled kindly in something’s meat.

The rest came like a shock. All wires went stiff and he found himself running; running back the way he came; back to his uncle’s workshop. This time his movement was targeted, commanded by a single thought, as when a boy first holds a gun. The wild earth flattened and he found himself crossing dunes and mounting bluffs machine-like. He was happy.

He pounded on the door, panting, boxers damp with sweat. Daedalus was irritated. Talos lived there; why should he knock except to disturb him? Talos held out the fish’s spine and said, Look. Daedalus raised his fist, but Talos quickly stepped back and pulled the spine across his own arm, drawing that same clean line of blood. Daedalus was bewildered enough to hesitate, and he hesitated enough to see. He took the fish spine without a word and carried it to his desk. Talos smiled, but his uncle’s eyes were vacant.

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That night, Talos was yanked from a sound sleep into darkness. His uncle lifted him and held him like a bundle of firewood against his chest. Talos didn’t struggle. He waited with the usual calm mixture of curiosity and fear for what would come next.

It was fast. He was under the night sky. He was climbing higher and higher, up a slope of crumbling shale. He was at an edge. Only when the face of the cliff was speeding by did it occur to him that his uncle would throw him over. He was disappointed at Daedalus’ laziness: Such an unimaginative way to kill. But, he reasoned, simple and certain.

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It hurt when he died. But not as much as what came after. His body was ripped open from the inside, his own spine shedding all attachments. What was left of him, this totem of bone, lengthened and arched and expelled it’s core, hollowing like a straw extracted from water. And more hollow parts grew: ribs and clavicle, femur and humerus and scapula, skull and mandible and little twitching digits. A pocked skin wrapped him tight and he sprouted feathers. He stroked them with his red beak, still tender with pain, and saw that he was deep brown edged with white.

Talos then experienced his last moments of surprise. Though they startle, birds do not wonder. He nested low to the water, in rocks worn smooth by the wind.

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Daedalus couldn’t have seen the transformation if he tried. He was already inside, turning the frail but wounding bit of fish spine over and over in his hands.