She said: “I wish you would never have to wear that mask, that mask you wear when you are with everyone else. It pains me, to know that I, that I am the only one, who knows you who truly are. I wish everyone could see your face, like I do. I wish I could be with you, when you aren’t wearing that mask that you let everyone see.”
And he said: “But darling, I’m always wearing a mask.”
So she said: “You are?”
To which he responded: “Of course. My mask that I wear for everyone else is my everyday mask, my ordinary mask, the mask that I have had since I was a child. Sure it has picked up a few different decorations along the path of my life, a few things that I grew sick of that I sanded out, but it is still the mask I am most used to.”
And she said: “But what of when you are with me, are you truly wearing a mask, even then, when I thought that I had you, and you as you truly are, all to myself?”
To which he responded: “Of course. The mask I wear for you is special. I’ll only ever let you see it, I made it just for you, so that you could have something no one else does. I toiled long and hard to create this mask, and I only wear it for you.”
To which she responded: “I want to see you when you aren’t wearing a mask. I hate that you have to wear a mask around me.”
And so she wept, because when he spoke she heard: “I don’t respect you enough to show you who I really am.”
And so he wept as well, because when she spoke he heard: “Your special mask you made for me is not good enough for me.”
Neither understood what the other was really trying to say. He spoke literally. She spoke in metaphor. It was the mix that caused the end.
In his sadness he took off his mask. He revealed to her his emptiness; the swirling darkness that sat on his neck where his face should be. She fell into him and was lost forever.
He burned the special mask.
His ordinary mask he changed. He took out all of the things that made that mask special.
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