The Mask

By the glow of the embers I scribe this note. My love, oh my angel, we had so great a romance. But she, promised to another, declared passion's journey
must cease.

I agreed to her request but loved her still. The eve awaiting her marriage, a festivity of invite only, was to be donned with costume and mask. What a glorious opportunity to gaze upon my beloved once more.

When the time came I stole a place in with a knot of disguised men to await the arrival
of an angel so fair, my darling affair. With awed silence and poetic announcement the angel sailed down the stairway encased with blazing candles. Her careful ringlet tresses blew in the wind of the breathing men and her face, the one I adored, was concealed by a thick, pallid, porcelain mask.

The porcelain fitted her rightly so, with the same absorbant emerald eyes and puffed crimson lips, and tied intricately through her curls with a wide black ribbon. The angel, uncharacteristically dressed in a gown so deep in scarlet and pitch, drifted amongst the crowd addressing every Lord and Lady graciously.

When she slowed her pace to halt in front of me she asked my name and held out a hand as pale as her mask. I too held out a hand, mine gloved and containing a gun. I am sorry my angel, but tonight you must die. Her now trembling hand reached to remove my disguise but my shot was quicker.

She crumpled and hit the floor, mask shattering to pieces to reveal the beauty I cherished. The room was still with shock, so easily creating my escape.

Now by the hearth I rest, recalling the memory of my passed affair with an angel so dark. The last glimpse I saw of her was the face of her mask...no it was not her mask. Her face fitting the porcelain rightly so, with the same absorbant emerald eyes and puffed crimson lips. The contrast though that pains my heart is the chasm above her glossy stare, draining the thick fluid down her empty porcelain skin.

My actions I cannot bear any longer so, my angel, I give
myself the same fate and we will be together again.