The Masquerade Ball

They want me to put on another mask. I have a collection of them. Not the real, physical ones, of course. But real masks change your appearance. So do mine.

I have one for parties. One for weddings of famous people(one might even say I'm lucky). One for award ceremonies, and hundreds of hundreds of masks for the paparazzi,with their flimsy pieces of metal clicking and flashing and clicking and flashing in an endless monotone.

They like me in a mask. Always people yelling calling out questions for me to answer with a great big smile on my face. And I do answer them, I always do. It's just a mask, after all.

When I'm done answering all their questions and adjusting my mask to the way they like it, someone takes me back to a safe place. There they help me take off my mask.

Then, always then, they look at me with half-apologetic faces. I am like a pretty piece of artwork they can never be satisfied with.

They put me in another mask, this one for my thousandth or another party. I can't tell by now, nor do I care. Every party or event blends into a smear, colors all mixing together until they become the color of everything else nowadays in my mind: brown.

But no matter.

I, above all, refuse to accept this fate, this future of bleakness. If I don't the world would be dull, orange and green and blue and yellow and so, oh so brown.

So when they come to me with eager looks on their faces, ready to try on another mask, I pretend to look excited. While they paint the mask back over my face and dress me in a gown, I think of the most beautiful thing I've seen.

A sunset. When the moon starts to come out and the sun blushes then becomes too shy to remain. Golden color, dazzling my eyes. But it's not just the color that people love, it's the feeling that you get when you understand life is not infinite any more than a day is. This feeling fills you up with a sort of bittersweet emotion, but more pronounce than that.

Now I picture this feeling as best I can, in order to trap it beneath this new mask of mine.

And as I enter the Masquerade Ball, I seem to blend in with the brown of everyone else. But in reality, I'm glowing.