The Mask

Martin Amos was an old man with a long white beard and dark, fearsome eyes. Every day he would go to the park to watch the young people as they passed by. “Ah!” he would think to himself. “Look at these young people with their perfect skin and healthy bodies. They have no clue as to what life really is! Just wait. Their skin will eventually shrivel and their bodies become weak. Then they will know!”

            One day, as Martin was seated at his usual perch upon a bench in the park, he saw a young man standing across the way. He was very handsome, with black slicked-back hair, clear pale skin, and piercing dark eyes. He was smoking a cigarette and Martin noticed that he was staring right at him. “Who is that young man?” he thought. “And why does he stare at me so fiercely?” A group of young women passed in front of the young man, obscuring Martin’s view of him, and when the women had passed, he was gone.

            As Karl walked back home later that night, he began to feel an itch on his face. He noticed that his skin felt drier, like rubber, and he wondered what could be wrong with him. When he got home, he prepared himself for bed. He took a shower, and continued itching at his face. When he got out of the shower, he looked in the mirror. His skin looked loose, as if it was falling away from the flesh, and it itched very badly. Then, to his astonishment, Martin noticed a crease near the top of his forehead. He put his finger on it, and, strangely, it seemed that the skin was coming off. He pressed down on the crease, and the skin peeled away very smoothly, as if it were a mask. He peeled it all the way down. The skin underneath was very white, and very clear, like a newborn’s. He peeled the skin all the way down his face, so that it came all the way off. Karl looked in the mirror. There he no longer saw his old familiar face, but rather the face of the young man from the park. It was the face of death.

            Karl’s heart clenched, and he felt great pain. Crying out, he put his hand to his chest, screwed up his eyes, fell over onto the floor, and died.