folyosó

Bertalan Szegi

Our story begins on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Most of the people are just relaxing and enjoying the last few hours of the weekend, watching tv, playing video games, or simply sleeping. 

But a guy whose name is Josh is sitting at his desk and trying to understand the math homework. His math teacher said that if they solve it and get a good solution they will be awarded a good grade. Some of Josh’s classmates have already solved it, and they are happy, because everyone got the same answer, but Josh didn’t want to get any sort of help. He is a strange guy, someone who would rather get a bad grade, or do something wrong, than let other people help him. In other words he is aloof and obstinate.

Josh had been working on his math homework the whole weekend. Fortunately he was able to start it, and following his method he could get a good solution, but he made a mistake while trying to rearrange the equation and didn’t realise it afterwards. Now just as he was about to get a result for the homework, he started to realise that something had gone wrong when he arrived at a negative number for the time. He was so upset, because he had thought that his solution would be perfect. While searching for his mistake, he didn’t even realize that it was almost 8 p.m. The next day he had to go to school early in the morning, because he had a 0th lesson, but he wanted to get a good solution before going to sleep. The other people in the class got a solution, but Josh would never ask them for help; he decided not to sleep until he got the good solution. But as the hours went by, he became very tired, and totally forgot about the next day. Approximately at 3 a.m. Josh fell asleep at his desk, and slept until 12 o’clock. When he woke up, he was so angry, because he was late for school, and not able to do the homework.  His parents were so angry, because they thought that he didn’t want to go to school. And all of his work was in vain.

This situation wouldn’t have happened if Josh had asked for help. He had overcomplicated a simple exercise. Also, it’s bad to ask for help right at the beginning, before trying to solve the problem yourself, but Josh went to the other extreme by putting all of his energy into it.

Eszter Aletta Hevesi

Erika Szántó

I was walking down the straight path he led me onto. He had laid the way out for me already. I could see the light at the end. I hastened my pace.

Suddenly, a wall of amethyst rose from the ground, forcing me to stop. There was a question written on the wall. “When was the camera invented?“ Hah! Easy, around 1816. What a weird question to ask. I could hear an ear-piercing cracking sound. It came from the wall. It broke in half, letting me go forward. A piece of it cut my cheek; the burning sensation of the wound reminded me that this was indeed reality.

I strode forward along the infinite pathway. Many other walls stood in my way, all of them falling apart after I answered the question carved on them. After a while, nearly all of my body parts had multiple gashes from their debris. The questions got harder too; it wasn’t so easy to answer them anymore. I hoped I could keep up my answer streak at least until I got to the end of this straight labyrinth of trivia.

I was limping and my breathing was shallow. I can’t go on for a lot longer like this. Yet another wall rose up. “Your grave is not here.” What? What is that supposed to mean? What should I answer? What is this? It’s not even a question!

Yes. It’s not here.

The wall didn’t crack. The amethyst started to shift in color and consistency. Molten crimson gashed down onto me. The ground tilted. No. It wants me to go back. It’s gonna kill me. I have to go on!

The molten substance burned me to bones and ashes. Or maybe the velocity of the fall killed me somehow. I won’t know anymore.

Alexandra Klaudia Süveges

People say dreams differ from reality. It may be true; people use dreaming to cope with the disappointment of the time spent awake. In dreams, anything can happen, reality is twisted, formed to your desire. Compared to life outside the fluffy blankets and pillows, dreams are a comfortable place for anyone.

There is a legend that says after a specific ritual, upon falling asleep you will find yourself before a maze. Once the alarm clock is set to 6 a.m. sharp, the game has begun. If you can manage to find a way out before hearing the alarm clock in the real world, you win. You can take anything to the real world you desire, without limits.

Here’s the catch: if you run out of time, you can never wake up again. Your desired reality would turn into a pit of nightmares without a single chance of escape. A truly one-round game.

Two players entered at the same time, each surprised to see the other. From the website where they found the tutorial—not even thinking it would remotely be true—was not even a single mention of playing in teams. Or against each other.

The first girl, observant and well-prepared, was holding paper and a pencil with a small rubber on its end. She wasted no time and ran in the labyrinth, already scribbling the layout of the visited path.

The other one sat outside, leaning against the material of the walls; pure, thin marble. Its dull white color and the repetitive carved-in pattern would make her head ache and lose patience if she were to see it all around her for the remaining six hours.

That’s what the first girl got: her paper torn by the many attempts of erasing after every corner, and the wind blew away the rubber dust, making her get completely lost before she was even halfway the end. Her rationalism and all, along with her inability to find a solution, is what led her here. At every dead end she’d recalculate the growing possibility of losing, without tactic. Not even her outstanding skills could find a way out though; she sank to the ground and gave up completely.

The second girl waited enough for the imaginary clock to tick down; she was sure the other wasn’t coming out anytime soon. Tangled in the creak of the maze, helpless, she let herself be consumed by despair and regret. She grabbed the hammer she had entered with, and ran in a straight line forwards, breaking all the marble stones in front of her.

The time was ticking sharp outside, just waiting for the morning sun to shine between the blinds. She swung the hammer left and right, not even caring about the flying shards in her way. Jumping for the last wall, breaking it with her physique, she won.

The trick? No matter where the real exit was, she would make a new one and win nevertheless.

Adél Mihályi

Life itself is a straight labyrinth.

From the very beginning, we are surrounded with questions. We try to figure out the answers, but later realize the more we discover, the more problems occur. They lead us with the ‘donkey and stick’ method, showing us hints at a solution, but we are so focused on the carrot that we hit our heads against the wall. After reaching multiple dead ends, we look around and find ourselves even further from the exit we were looking for the whole time.

This is the point when we get panicked and just want to escape; we would do anything just to leave this maze behind. We look at the thread that has followed all our footsteps: it is strangled by its own tangles. How is it ever going to be straight?

As Joseph Sugarman, a character from the series BoJack Horseman, said: “Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses, it merely marches forward.” It is moving on a straight path, and we try our best to keep pace with it, while wandering in the chaos.

…But that is impossible. Sometimes, we just have to stop fighting, forget the grey walls, the rushing time. We have to look at the sky and think about how, at the very same moment, someone else is doing the same thing, while forgetting about their own labyrinth, their life.

Nerses Boztaş

Clouds of dust licking longitudinally all the suburb, Sasuntsi women veiled, handling water copper buckets and spreading out their inlaid rugs on the street, settled down to gabble in a language frazzled. “Ahçig,Anunıt inçi? “ Makruhi Can, Makruhi.” Yells of Methuselah’s swearing, swearing blue streak, damning, sarcastic melodically covered grayish air and  Virgin Mary church’s bell clanging. Patriarch wormy Ohan, in the middle of the smarmy vartabets crowd, hymning Hayrmer liturgy in abundant woe, enraged as much as gulping, the whole congregation started to weep. İnçu honeng? “Why are we here? Why? But the railway had never stunk of joy and happiness. How can ironpigs bring along serenity? Contrarily they talked about Jerusalem, beauty terrenels, flowers, fig and apple trees…” passed from mind to mind. Just then, in front of gate, a scraggly boy, swarthy and black-haired, appeared. He rushed up flustered. Stumbling up and down in each bend of serpentine, stony streets of the historic peninsula, he exhaled in Hoopedstone. In front of him, there was an old, white-facade building which was never lacking in internal uproar. The old foreman was dressing down the novice apprentice. Even micro-stains remaining on the window being overlooked while cleaning up was a sufficient cause for beating.  Varbet-tradition, contradictorily demanding subsistence of us, was a just part of exiguity. When he ascended to the fourth flat, he saw senile Arto pissing by the window, mad Zınzalyan busy stuffing patties with cheese filling, and bald Aram yelling to Arto. On the bench, plenty of Ganyan bulletins creased by nervous hands were piled. İt was evident that Arto had lost his 44th horse-racing bet, dooming again. Because bequeathed fortune undoubtedly  goes into horse racing; now he doesn’t even have a common lavatory. Bald Aram, when he noticed the little boy, rumbled like a whale, “Zso, Jamı kaniye kides?” “Kide kidee kidem varbet pays, pays.” Bald Aram got nervous. ”Pays inç, pays inç, gentani.” The boy’s was saucer-eyed, his lips twitching in fright. “Pays, varbet, şat kalelu der mi ga.” Bald Aram, flaring out, said, “Betkevor zezs çudes, ganuğh bidi cas,” and made him stand on one foot for punishment. Mad Zınzal gave a silly glance, once at the boy and twice at varbet bald Aram. And the boy was thinking. It it worth it for us to go on working, suffering here? And what to say for Garabet, Hagop, Mıgır? Education will hit us? Witnessing a sargavag, elder man Zınzalyan, now he is busy being parasitic. He cares, no? Arto? Thousandfold endeavoring though his fortune has been lost? But has he been lost? Or bald Aram,a  foreman creating global diffusion of jewellery. But on the other hand, he is quite realistic. He tortures me. When I expressed to my family that I can’t understand human behavior, they disdained me as a child. But a child growing up becomes a more childy child. Childhood in Sandgate is adulthood. An adulthood is childhood part one.” With a sudden seizure he fell in a heap in front of everyone’s eyes.

Armenian glossary

Sasuntsi women:The women of Sason

Ahçig,anunıt inçi? “Makruhi Can,Makruhi”: the refrain of a folk song named “Makruhi can,” meaning “girl what’s your name, Makruhi Can, Makruhi?”

vartabet: a priest in the Armenian church

Hayrmer: a liturgy meaning “our mother”

Varbet-tradition: mentor system

Zso, jamı kaniye kidess?: Hey you, what time is it, do you know?

“Kide, kidee, kidem varbet pays,pays”: I know, know my master, but…”

Pays, varbet, şat kalelu der mi ga: “But my master, it’s a long way to walk.”

sargavag: deacon

Betkevor zezs çudes, ganugh bidi cas: In order not to be beaten, come earlier!