Me

I've put on a mask. A diamond-studded mask. Dazzling like a sea arrow-struck by sunlight. It's now lulling the old me to slumber, trying to wake up the new.

Still, my metamorphosis is not yet complete; a single mask is never enough.

Slipping into stilettos, I briskly strut my way into a masquerade, into a labyrinth of masked crowds. The room, full of chatter and laughter, echoes with some fast-paced music that roars more, more fiercely by every second. I start dancing to the rhythm the way they do -- shuffle to the left, sway to the right, tap, and turn.

Now and then comes along a man passing me a glass of vodka. I just gulp it all down, as though with insatiable thirst, and keep dancing, swirling in a whirl of ecstasy.

My senses turn hazier and hazier. So excruciating is the dizziness that I've almost lost the ability to move. All I can do is stay in the same spot, let the music deafen myself, and watch the partygoers scatter and gather, become floods of jawbones.

Later I feel that something from behind is creeping over me stealthily and imbibing my flesh. At first, I don't have clues as to what it is. But as it pats my shoulder and turns my head to its side, all clues surface.

This diaphanous, phantom-like being takes off its mask. The crowds follow, revealing who they are in truth. I seem surrounded by numerous mirrors, upon each of which a facet of life is reflected.

There he is, a comedian, at a carousel of blurred facial features, cracking jokes so that he'll be applauded.

Here she is, against the silhouette of herself, weeping hysterically and slitting her wrist until her tears and blood converge into a river.

And before me stands a stoic old woman, clasping her hands together as if in prayer, with a child and a skeleton tugging at her dress.

It then lifts my mask also, despite my unwillingness, and vanishes. Upon its disappearance, my body is melting, evaporating. Everyone can walk through me as easily as opening a lockless door -- They all are me.

Far from what I wanted, I've become someone helplessly schizophrenic, someone with so many faces that I appear to have no face at all. Even if the masquerade carries on, even if I can wear that glittering mask again, they all are me.

The new me.

No. Maybe they're just the personae I used to smother brutally, rushing back to haunt me all at once.