Victor Pelevin - Helmet of Horror

Monstradamus

Okay, I understand about the discourse, but what did he say about the labyrinth?

Nutscracker

When he was talking about the labyrinth he spoke very quickly, so I don’t remember it all. Basically, a labyrinth comes into being when you have to choose between several alternatives, and the alternatives are a set of our possible preferences, conditioned by the nature of language, the structure of the moment and the specific features of the sponsor. I didn’t understand very much after that, I only remember that at some point he launched into the ‘Internationale’, and at first he sang really loudly and menacingly, but after a minute he shifted into ‘Happy birthday to you’.

Monstradamus

That’s called the plurality of discourses. I remember that from university. And what did he say about the Minotaur?

Nutscracker

The Minotaur is you.

Monstradamus

Me?

Nutscracker

I could almost feel you shudder. He didn’t mean you in person. He looked into the eyes of his imaginary viewer, waved his arms about like an eagle flapping its wings and yelled: ‘Minotaure! Minotaure, c’est toi!! Tu es Minotaure!!!’ Then he calmed down. He said you simply have to understand that the Minotaur is a projection of your mind and therefore he is nobody else but you.

Monstradamus

Did he say what we ought to do?

Nutscracker

What else? As long as there’s a sponsor, carry on with the discourse!

Monstradamus

But what turns do we make in the labyrinth?

Nutscracker

We follow the turns the discourse takes.

Monstradamus

Interesting.

Nutscracker

To be honest, I didn’t really understand what a discourse is, even after the hairy guy had just been talking about it.

Monstradamus

It’s something like a glue that sticks the helmet of horror on really solidly. So you can’t get it off again.

Nutscracker

Don’t frighten me.

Monstradamus

You’re the one who’s been frightening me for the last hour. Were there any women candidates?

Nutscracker

Yes. There was one very attractive little heifer who looked like a psychiatrist. Her symbol was right for that, too: a bull on a chain lying on a couch. I don’t remember everything she said now, but the main idea was that the only way to defeat the Minotaur is to stop thinking of yourself as a victim. Then he’ll simply disappear. Everyone has his own Minotaur, she said, but in reality it’s not he who pursues us, we pursue him. And the labyrinth in which we seek him is the dopamine chains of pleasure linking up into rings in the human brain – they’re different for everyone, as unique as fingerprints. And as for which turns to make in the labyrinth, it’s all very simple. Suppose you’re standing at an intersection with ten identical corridors leading in different directions. Then of course your choice of which corridor to follow should not be determined by fears and superstitions, but by the promptings of simple common sense.

Monstradamus

So did you make a choice?

Nutscracker

How do you mean? Between corridors?

Monstradamus

Between candidates.

Nutscracker

I’m not really sure what position I’d be choosing the candidate for. Or what institution, or what term. Or how he’d be going to lead me out of the labyrinth, when the room has no doors or windows.

Monstradamus

He’ll lead you out through the television. How else? You of all people should understand that. Is there anything else you remember?

Nutscracker

I watched it all on fast forward, just listened to each one for about five minutes to get the general idea. As long as they’re talking it all seems interesting and new. Then you wind on the cassette and you’ve forgotten it all. Some American or other said that the labyrinth is the Internet. That it’s inhabited by a some being that hacks into the mind, and that’s the Minotaur. It’s not really a bull-man, it’s a spider-man. He said if there’s a worldwide web, then there must be a soul-sucking spider. He also explained why the Minotaur has two names. It seems that ‘Minotaur’ is the politically correct version of the name ‘Asterisk’. So every time we want to say ‘Asterisk’, we should say ‘Minotaur’. But then ‘Asterisk’ is the politically correct version of the name ‘Minotaur’, and every time we want to say ‘Minotaur’ we should say ‘Asterisk’. And so in principle we can use both names, only not when we want to, but the other way round. There was an interesting German who said that the Minotaur is the spirit of the time, the Zeitgeist , which has manifested itself in the form of mad cow disease, hence its symbolic representation in the form of a man with a bull’s head. Its counterpart in art is postmodernism, which is the mad cow disease of a culture forced to feed on its own powdered bones. And in politics it’s all that stuff you see and feel when you switch on the television. Then there was an Italian, dressed in black, who announced that the Minotaur – he said ‘Mondotaur’ – is a being whose physical body is the gross dollar supply. It’s stupid to believe that everything is controlled through money, he said – why through it and not by money itself? The Mondotaur is the evil spirit that reigns over the world, and compels every single one of us to wander aimlessly through the foul, stinking labyrinth of his intestines. And his two horns are … I’ve forgotten.

Monstradamus

It doesn’t matter, I can imagine.

Nutscracker

Then a priest with kind eyes spoke and explained that the creator of the labyrinth is also our saviour, who loves us greatly. In much the same way as we love little children, he said.

Monstradamus

And what proposals did they all have?

Nutscracker

It all came down to how many times to turn right and how many times to turn left, and in which order. Everyone wanted to do it his own way.

Monstradamus

Perhaps that’s the whole point. Not to think about where the way out is, but to realise that life is the crossroads where you’re standing at this precise moment. Then the labyrinth will disappear as well. After all it only exists as a complete whole in our minds, and in reality there is nothing but a simple choice – which way to go next.

Nutscracker

Uhuh. And the Minotaur won’t do anything to us, because the present ‘us’ will no longer exist when he catches up with us. One of them said that as well.

Organizm(-:

And now what’s outside your door, Monstradamus? It’s about time you told us, you’re the only one left.

Monstradamus

You’ll be disappointed, Organism.

Nutscracker

We’ll see. So what have you got?

Monstradamus

A dead-end.

Nutscracker

I don’t get it.

Monstradamus

A corridor a few metres long ending in a blank concrete wall with a single depressing graffito . Or at least I find it depressing. The imprint of a gigantic seal drawn in fluorescent lilac paint, like something on an official document from Hell. In the centre is the Roman numeral ‘VII’ and running out from it in a spiral is an endless string of symbols like the ones that street-gangs leave on walls. Nothing but zigzags, intricate curls, arrows and brackets – impossible to make out a single word. But all very suggestive.