Greek mythology deals abundantly with human frailty. Many of its tales involve hatred and jealousy. Have you ever heard of "The Wings of Icarus"? Allow me to summarize. Long ago, in ancient Greece, there lived a great inventor named Daedalus. Daedalus was ordered by King Minos to build a great labyrinth in which to imprison the monstrous Minotaur.
However, King Minos soon abandoned Daedalus, confining the inventor to a tower alongside his son, Icarus.
In order to escape their prison, Daedalus gathered together the feathers of many birds in order to fashion a large pair of wings. He connected the larger feathers with thread, and the smaller with wax. Once the wings were completed and the time had come to fly to freedom, Daedalus gave Icarus a warning.
He said, "If you fly too high, the sun will melt the wax holding the wings together. Be careful." With that warning in mind, Icarus leapt from the tower alongside his father. Together, they gained their freedom. But freedom can be a dangerous thing, and can make a person lose sight of himself. With such boundless freedom before him, Icarus started to get carried away.
Perhaps it was inevitable after breaking free from such painful restraints.
Icarus, blissful, forgot his father's warning and flew higher and higher.
The sun burned the false angel wings that his father had constructed, and in the blink of an eye, the wax melted. Eventually, the false wings were completely burned away. Icarus fell into the sea and died. Was Icarus a brave young man who jumped into the sky to gain his freedom? Or was he an arrogant fool who overestimated his abilities and believed that he could reach the sun? Perhaps no one save for his father, Daedalus, will ever know the answer to that.
For some reason, I thought of Icarus' wings when standing before a certain young boy. Considering what these past few months had brought, I could say that I made the comparison simply because he resembled Icarus.
But I immediately came to realize that the two boys were fundamentally different from one another. This boy possessed neither the bravery nor the arrogance of Icarus.
I had been pushed into a corner. I had no choice but to do it.
Lacking the means to deal with it, I had no choice but to incur this boy's divine wrath. I had no choice but to conduct myself firmly, turning this boy's quiet rage toward me. The die cannot be returned once cast. The gamble had already begun.