There once was, in a kingdom full of glee and tragedy, a jester of a gay sort.
He was intertwined within many a court of the nobility.
None could escape the jester’s hilarious wit.
One day the jester was to perform in the procession of the king himself.
He was not one to deny such an honor, and proceeded his way to the castle to perform for the king.
After performing acts of shenanigans beyond you and I, the king was quite disgruntled by his mask.
The jester’s mask, which had been painted in such a fashion to cut sharply into a sad man’s heart with a smile large enough to swallow a small dog.
The king ordered the jester to remove his mask as to show his true face to him. However, the jester could not oblige his king and utterly refused such an order.
The king was heavily enraged to the point of being comparable to a large bear.
He ordered his guards to seize the jester and remove the mask by force.
The jester could surely not refuse that offer.
As the guards kept him in place their captain approached the jester and began to ceremoniously remove the mask in a forceful manner.
The king, the captain, and the two guards watched in absolute horror as the jester’s true face was a skeleton, the decayed face showed specks of skin near the eye sockets, and some few teeth survived to see the light of this day.
The king stuttered in his shock, “W-Why would you w-wear that mask?!”
The jester simply replied, “Did you not know? The happiest man is dead behind his mask.”