by kingmudsy
We too could imagine a simpler labyrinth, a single string of hexagons too long for any mortal to traverse, without the capacious pits that grant a view on infinity and the knowledge of other paths. Anyone with the misfortune to find themselves inside such a space would never know if she walked an infinite line or a circle, if the ends of her path met or not. An infinite circle, Borges points out in another tale (“Ibn-Hakam al Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth”), would be, for finite eyes, indistinguishable from a line (were its circumference visible at all). “…They had arrived at the labyrinth. Seen at close range, it looked like a straight, virtually interminable wall…Dunraven said it made a circle; but one so broad its curvature was imperceptible.”These lines immediately follow the complaint of his companion:
‘Mysteries ought to be simple. Remember Poe’s Purloined letter, remember Zangwill’s locked room.’
‘Or complex,’ replied Dunraven. ‘Remember the universe.’