— I will never forget the monster’s eyes staring at me in the dark — said Heitor with the cigar halfway to his mouth. His hand frozen in the air, his eyes glazed as if he were reliving the moment he saw that horned man caged in the army laboratory up close.
— He was crouched inside the cage looking directly at me. The horns, wide as a clenched fist, protruded from the sides of his head and his eyes sparkled as if they were glowing embers. I was paralyzed, hypnotized. That’s when he opened his mouth without making a sound, and I saw sharp teeth. I had no doubt that I was in the presence of a demon.
— Ah, and don’t think it was only in mythology that creatures like that were mentioned, Durval, oh no! Not at all! After that day, I did a lot of research, you should know. These beings have been among us for centuries, millennia. They have been described in epics, legends, sacred texts. Ovid, in Metamorphoses, spoke of the monster. Dante and Virgil, in the Divine Comedy, encounter the creature in hell among others who were cursed for their aggressive and cruel nature, the so-called “men of blood.”
— There are several stories with horned characters in literature — said Durval.
— But it’s not fiction, Durval. In Enkomi on the island of Cyprus, they found Bronze Age statues of what they called the “Horned God.” Etruscan paintings from centuries before Christ also depict women breastfeeding babies with horns.
Heitor went to a cabinet and grabbed several folders and notebooks filled with notes and photographs.
— In 1878, a guy named, guess what, Minos Kalokairinos, discovered on the island of Crete a place known as Knossos and, believe it or not, there is a huge ruin with over 1300 compartments and closed corridors. A labyrinth. Does it remind you of anything?
— No.
— There is no evidence, but the place has been identified by several scholars as the location of the Minotaur’s labyrinth myth. According to legend, Prince Theseus promises his father that he will kill the monster. His beloved, Ariadne, gives him a thread that he uses to mark the way through the labyrinth. Theseus kills the Minotaur with his father’s sword and manages to escape the labyrinth.
— You’re not telling me that the creature in Botelho’s laboratory was a Minotaur — said Durval.
— I’m saying that these monsters really exist, they always have. The Phoenicians worshipped a being named Baal-Moloch who was considered a violent god with horns. According to the Old Testament of the Bible, in the rituals of worship to Moloch, children were sacrificed. They were thrown into the belly of a statue where fire consumed the child alive.
— What horror!
— Do you realize, Durval?, this beast has been present in human history since very early on. Christians identify it with the Devil. The Greeks with the Minotaur. But it is a race of real creatures.
— There’s a Scottish anthropologist — continued Heitor — named J. G. Rapsag who in 1902 found, buried on the island of Crete, more than 50 human skulls with horns. He was discredited by the British Museum of Natural History and ended up committing suicide years later.
Heitor leaned back in the armchair and took a puff from the cigar.
— This thing is real, Durval, and it’s among us now.
Episode XLI continues in the next edition.
JOSÉ GASPAR
Filmmaker and writer
www.historiasdooutromundo.com