King Minos Addresses Rumors of Human Sacrifice

My latest for Ahoy Comics

Some of you may be comics readers, but many of you probably aren’t. (Not judging.) For the past couple of years, AHOY Comics has been celebrating and subverting all kinds of comics by launching cat-piloted spaceships (Captain Ginger), following werewolf lesbian detectives around LA (Black’s Myth) and painting bleak yet hilarious utopias (Billionaire Island).

They also print extra short stories in every issue, and have published several of mine, for which I am very grateful. After finishing the story below and sending it in, I thought that maybe I should’ve tried my luck with The New Yorker. This story presupposes some exposure to classical studies, after all, and highlights political double-speak. And is funny to boot. But my breakthrough NYer piece will have to wait. Enjoy this, and check out other stories and comics at AHOY’s webpage. This piece is printed in this week’s release of Deadweights.

To my loyal and worthy subjects, this is King Minos speaking. People of Crete, I want to assure you all in this hour of confusion that all is well in our island kingdom. The rain falls like sweet ambrosia on the hills, and our harvests continue to overwhelm our storage silos. They used to be the biggest in the Mediterranean, but now we shall build more! Like I always say, you can’t beat Crete!

At the same time, many enemies of this kingdom and of your king personally have been spreading rumors about human sacrifices taking place under the walls of my castle. This is ridiculous, slanderous, and unfounded. Your king would never commit human sacrifice under his own home.

The Minotaur, however, did do a little killing.

But that’s why we keep him securely in the maze under the castle…. uh…. hold on…

You put your trust in the royal household, and we take that seriously. There is not a problem of human sacrifice in Crete. What there is, is a problem with Athenians, being sent here in hordes as tribute.

This started when my son, Prince Androgeos, was invited to Athens to partake in the Panathenaic Games. And as a true son of Crete, he earned the championship for every one! A paragon of Cretan excellence, that kid! Then what happens? Some sneaky, jealous Athenians attack him for his trophies and kill him. Right? You know how they are!

Now to restore our honor and avenge my son, I could send a mighty army to Athens and salt their fields and whip their asses. But that would mean conscripting your fathers and brothers and sons to fight. I didn’t think it was worth it. Instead, I tell the Athenians (who don’t even have a king, by the way) to send us 10 young men every year as tribute.

But then these Athenians start to crowd our cities, jabbering in their dialect and dancing their silly dances. Do we want these “soft” invaders to take away your jobs? Marry your daughters? Do you want their “philosophy” taught in our schools? No! Of course not! But when Demeter sends you lemons, what do you do? That’s right, feed them to the Minotaur! So, to be clear: this is not human sacrifice, this is solving the Athenian problem.

Oh yes yes yes. Everyone knows the minotaur is technically my son. Technically. And believe me, my heart breaks with the thought of him running around in a maze beneath the castle. The only thing that lifts my spirit is the thought that he is eating Athenians. You’d think he’d be a herbivore, but things didn’t fall that way. He’s happy and fed, and our Cretan blood line remains pure.

It’s old news that my wife Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur. Yes, it’s true, she had sex with a bull, and even disguised herself in an elaborate contraption to seduce the bull and make moo sounds and survive the sex. Look, it was a different time. An experimental time. Everyone I know dabbled in a little bit of that. It was the hip thing to do, but now we know it’s not okay. She is resting comfortably now, at a farm up on Mount Strouboulas, receiving the finest of care.

It’s hard to blame the Minotaur for his situation. Examples of stable families are hard to come by. I mean, my own father was Zeus, who populated half the Mediterranean Basin, it feels like. I am working through my issues about him even today. Really, it was my uncle Poseidon who started this whole obsession with bulls when I hesitated in sacrificing the beautiful white bull he sent me. Man, that was a beautiful bull. Just beautiful. You’ve all seen it. Now, I may have failed as a father many times with my example, but I’ve always looked out for the Minotaur. And certainly, you folks too. The safety of the Cretan people comes first.

So, I ask you, my fine subjects, to make the decision: Do you want public safety and the peace of mind to sleep on your own pile of straw at night? Or do you want to allow Athenians to overrun our fair island, with their silly accents and threatening dancing?

So yes, we do have Athenians volunteering to feed the minotaur and keep him calm and satisfied. That’s not human sacrifice, dear subjects, that’s good civic planning.