Barbarians at the castle door. 🏰
Burn the castle down. Find the faces buried beneath the mask. 🏰
They came one bitterly cold and dreadful night
Dragged everyone from their beds quite ignobly
Burned the castle down...Unearthed the runes beneath the ruins.
Found the secrets we masked... rotting deep...
The skeletons which, wickedly, we buried so very long ago
Their skinless mouths...blackened teeth petrified oh so horribly
Grinned mockingly, as if they had sent the devils for revenge
The trumpets rend the sky with its dreadful sounding
Rousing the sleeping dead from their slumber
Hark...hark, ye murdering sums of witches
Off with their heads, was the chanting sung far and wide
The Guillotine gleamed deathly silver-grey in the moonlight
Before they proceeded to sever my lovely mask from my face...I wrote a...
Note to self...seared forever upon mine mind
"Never bury the skeletons where you sleep. For when you least expect it, one drunken night you confess, remove the mask - and...The hangman ties your noose".
Or rather, the swordsman sharpens the guillotine blade.
🏰🏰🏰
But dumbfounded, they all stood in baffled horror
For mask after mask, after mask, they kept removing
thinking me a monster
All night it took them...they all tried and tried...grew fatigued
They called in THE MEN AND WOMEN IN BLACK
Who employed all of their Agents, from A>Z
They had found one alien they could not tame
I had committed no crime...that they knew of---
except to hide my true self - Under masks...
No judge would sign a warrant for my arrest
The search had been illegal...still - I sit
And stare into the mirror, long after their departure
Completely forgetting - who I am (was) beneath the mask
My original de jure face...now a distant phantom memory!
About the Creator
Antoni De'Leon
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. (Helen Keller).
Tiffany, Dhar, JBaz, Rommie, Grz, Paul, Mike, Sid, NA, Michelle L, Caitlin, Sarah P. List unfinished.
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Comments (5)
The metaphor of peeling back masks to reveal buried truths is powerful and unsettling. It captures both personal and societal decay with poetic precision.
Whoaaa, this was a masterpiece! I especially loved those last 3 lines!
A fantastical mix of modernity and the Venetian.....a cool idea, Antoni. From age to age, it remains the same...humanity hides itself under masks.
That was quite the twist. I did not see that coming. Nicely done!
Good job. I have seen 'Men In Black'. Your story did remind me of it.