John Biscello

The mask lifted. Autumn lisped.

Lost, and lisping about a mausoleum of hours, days.

It was a dry Marienbaddish summer. Which gave way to fall. You have to imagine it giving way: Summer, holding up its illustrious red velvet cape, lush and crenellated, entreating Autumn to step forward and take its place. Autumn, cricket-boned, amok with murmurs and whispers, sepia crunch toasting the edges. Autumn silently took the place of Summer, and Summer took to the air and earth in its dispersal aimed toward waiting and rebirth.

I saw this through my lifted mask. I peeked. My right eye was swollen. I could feel hammy flesh pouching round my eye. My left eye was closed. In the past it had been a killer, a mercenary gaze, a rapist … it was my lizard eye. One lizard eye, one bruised tender lover of an eye. I saw through a mask. The eyeholes of the mask were slightly corroded. Too much acid. Too many seasons. Not enough tears. Something. A lover’s tundra is one you enter at your own risk.

If masks could talk.

If masks could talk they would say.

If masks could talk they would say What would they say?

I would love to host an autobiography and podcast for the voices of masks. Masks inherit stories. Masks are equal parts lighthouse and storage bins. They hold, they protect, they conceal, they contain, they allow. Masks are green lights according to the other lights in which we traffic . I used to live a red-light existence, and I wore the proper masks to allow for and accommodate this existence. There is no such thing as light, only tricks of the light.

Did you know that your masks wear masks? Than when you take off your mask, your face is not there, your face will not be bared to the world, born to the world, uh-uh, another mask is waiting, another mask revealed and exposed, because your masks wear masks. This is where you get into the physics of ad infinitum. Where do masks begin and end? Are we born bare-faced or mask-faced? Are we born wearing an inheritance and claim from genealogy, from past lives, from karmic shackles and bind—is there a sheerest mask to begin with, a sheath of translucent plasma, and from there, the assemblage and stacking of masks begins its mass industry?

Autumn comes limping in. It needs a cane. It is too proud to ask for one. It is already shamelessly shedding in front of spectators. It is already grieving summer’s loss and growing old rapidly to demonstrate and confirm the passage of seasons to a curious audience. Autumn is supremely noble in its saudade. It refuses a cane.

Allow Autumn to touch your mask, to fondle it with spindly sepia fingers, and enjoy the tender mortuary of Autumn’s slow-burn seduction.