The Manticore
THE MANTICORE
Manticore tried to be a good son and he loved his family, but they were all so different. Part man, part lion, and part scorpion, his childhood wasn’t easy. Each home had different expectations and, try as he might to do everything right, he always felt like he was hiding part of himself. It drove him crazy.
At one house, he had to make his bed every morning and keep his room clean. Another home was just a hole in the ground and there was a strict adherence to napping during the day. Sometimes he’d be out in the garden with his family, hoeing the rows and harvesting potatoes, and other times, he’d be licking his fur clean of the blood of a gazelle that he had killed with his teeth. He was always “running errands” for some reason, or then he’d just be hanging out for long periods with nothing to do unless some aimless insect came along to paralyze.
One family was as messy as a pile of rainforest leaf litter and never talked about their feelings or ever went anywhere unless they were completely out of groceries. One family was always moving from place to place and liked to keep things as free and open as the wide, windswept plains, not a care in the world. And one family was as sheltered as a country house and worried about everyone else and everything they could, and always, always made sure the door was closed all the way.
The lions were a prideful family, as if they were the kings of everything. They were also very competitive and always took the lion’s share. But they had a lot of good qualities too. They were an honest and loyal group, strong and brave, some would even call them lion-hearted. Whenever they got together, it always centered around a big feast. After eating, they’d wrestle around until they were tired, and then they’d all come together and fall asleep in a pile. Whenever they could, they’d sleep the whole day away. It was a nice respite, but it always took Manticore a while to get comfortable.
His human family had an opposite schedule and were real busy bodies from the time the sun came up until it finally set in the evening. They always had to be doing something, even when there wasn’t any need for it. They were always talking about wanting to be more comfortable, but never took any time to relax. Instead, they filled every hour with building things, or breaking things, or fixing broken things, or inventing fanciful constructs like money. They spent time trying to come up with new ways of doing old ways and then rediscovering old ways of doing the new ways in an endless cycle that they’d then argue and argue over until someone was upset. Games with his human family were always overly complicated. Rules changed constantly and it was hard to keep track of it all, but that was part of their games too because then they could argue about that as well.
His scorpion family, on the other hand, liked to stay up all night. They only played one game, hide-and-seek, and they played it all night, every night. Problem was, all of them liked to hide more than they liked to seek, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Patience is a virtue, but the scorpions took it to an extreme. A single game could last for weeks, and then they’d just start it over again. Manticore didn’t have time for that. And sometimes, the game would get out-of-hand and they’d do hurtful things to each other, things that really stung.
All this back and forth, dealing with these opposite schedules, family obligations, expectations, and different ways of work and play, made it hard for the Manticore to feel like he fit in anywhere. Each part of his family saw themselves reflected in him in their own way, and so he rarely felt like he had permission to be completely himself, a total manticore. It gave him anxiety.
All his families loved him dearly and they didn’t mean any harm, but each had their own way of showing that love and appreciating him for who he was. Ultimately, it would be up to him to show them all of himself if he truly wanted to be accepted and to accept himself.
It took a long time and some help from seeing a therapist Sphinx (who also knew what it was like to grow up with three different families). Manticore had a lot of questions and doubts, but the Sphinx only talked in riddles that forced him to answer for himself and unpack his feelings. By the time he was ready to go out on his own, he had realized something precious: He was part of all three families and simultaneously unique, and that there wasn’t actually a conflict there. Manticore had accepted the fact that he was a human/lion/scorpion, complicated and beautiful.
And that’s a fantastic thing to be.