The Minotaur

Fight-or-flight responses are triggered by a harmful event, attack or threat of survival or in his case, a wedding suit had triggered that response, and he wasn’t sure himself if he picked fight or flight. 
The repetitive sound of shoes on marble gave away a ruthless rhythm to which a choir sang “run”. So he did. Through polished, white hallways that looked like they were built for an emperor, but in his head the corridors always resembled King Minos labyrinth. He often questioned if it was to keep him in like the Minotaur.
The rhythm changed when he flew down the stairs, two at a time. He was anticipating the drumming of more feet behind him, following their own rhythm. After all he just bolted from the fitting room. He had never been more desperate to run through those awfully high oak doors, as they resembled the gates to heaven, not even when he was a child and the first snow started layering on top of every surface, waiting to be disarrayed. 
“Theodore?” 
It was a mere whisper, but it broke through the sharp clinking of his running like a scream. He stalled, body shut down by the hushed name. A question, as if his mother couldn’t believe her son was searching for an exit, yet at the same time she didn’t sound surprised at all. He just stared down at the marble beneath his feet, his reflection watching him closely from within the white, almost swallowed by it. The silence was almost unbearable, it always had been. He missed the sound of shoes against stone, a telltale of moving forward, away. 
He turned. 
Theodore didn’t expect the understanding look in his mothers eyes, the calm in her body as she stood there as if she were just chatting with her friends over a cup of tea, hands entwined in front of her belly. Then her lips formed around a softly spoken “Go” and she showed him the same serene smile she had showed him as a kid when he had nightmares and wouldn’t calm down unless he saw his mother, her reassuring smile. Everything was fine. Even as monsters caught him in his nightmares, baring their teeth in a threat, he needed this smile, this reassurance, more at that moment than when he woke up in the dead of night, drenched in sweat. 
As sweet as his mother can be, he also learned to never contradict her, so he just turned around and continued the harsh rhythm of his steps and pushed the doors open in a flurry, hot air, warmed by the day, gushed around his face and he ran down the last few stairs until his feet were met with gravel.

It felt as if his dress shoes were cutting off the blood circulation to his feet. He hated new shoes. With every step he took the sun set lower, even though that should have meant for the heat to go down, but no, it stayed unbearable hot, so hot, he had to shed his blazer which was now hanging from his shoulder like the worst cape in history, a disappointment to his younger self. There was nothing but desert around, and it all looked the same, the scenery didn’t change, the only evidence for the time still running was the sun, slowly disappearing into the ground. He thought he heard howling and was reminded of coyotes, and suddenly he thought he wasn’t sweating solely from the heat anymore and his lazy, tired steps became faster. He did not know how long he had been walking, he didn’t even remember when he crossed the border from city to Sahara.