Masks

It's a pale peach color. The eyes are dull and lifeless like the rest.

Colorless.

Emotionless.

Yet they move around in the wooden holes in their frames, their features wholly disenchanted as they wander aimlessly. The mouth is painted on, a wispy pair of cherry red lines with a small crevice in the middle. It isn't smiling, yet it isn't frowning either. Likewise the nose is drawn on. It's a more definitive shade of black lines that give direction but no shape to the feature.

They call him Boredom as they put it on with his back turned. He connects the strap and tightens it.

Fear. Anger. Depression. Joy. Love. Awe. All the same. The eyes are moving but with no real thought. Mouths stenciled on with those wispy cherry lines, hiding the expressions and people from the outside world. You never see their real faces. Their backs are always to you. You never know what is really spiraling behind that mask. It always appears so lifeless, so inhumane.

What are they? What are they hiding that could be so terrible?

I avoid mirrors. I don't like the way they look back at you, and you see yourself in the same way. Lifeless with features painted on. They call it Pain. The frown sketched on, the moving eyes staring aimlessly.

What am I? What am I hiding that could be so terrible?

I don't know anymore. It's all I've ever known and the picture of anything before is hazy. It's a lie. I'm a lie. They're a lie. I'm so numb to it all that I don't notice it anymore. It is easier to believe a lie when you are willing.

Is that what we all feel?

Fear?

Constant Fear?


Fear of being exposed as the outside world sees our wretched images becoming disgusted and appalled. The blush of our true skin being exposed to the circulation of life, air oxygenating the blood once again.

It's easier this way. The mask becomes so tight no one can remove it, not even you.

It's easier to paint a smile than frown. It's easier to hide real joy when you can't move anymore. It becomes you. It is you. It becomes me.

A lie.