Or: Oh, how I wish this could work!
There's a French verb, méduser , that means "to astound, to stun, to stupefy." An adjective, médusé , is similarly defined. But if the careful reader looks closely, the root of the word comes from a very well-known Gorgon in Greek mythology with snakes for hair.
So in a recent translation, I drafted the following:
[He] stood in the narrow path that wound in between books, paintings, and stacks of unknown content, the chaos holding my gaze like Medusa the Gorgon.
It's so fun. I so wish it would work.
It so doesn't.
All of a sudden, I'm back to writing bad high school poetry. Darn.
Still, it's fun. Yay, brain exercises!