At the end of the checkout line, collecting groceries in bags, I feel something on my face.
Like walking through a single spiderweb strand, without thinking, I raise my hand to brush aside the feeling.
But it touches something sticky, and my vision unravels like two identical overhead transparencies sliding out of alignment. My ears begin to burn as anxious termites fill all the empty space in my chest cavity.
The mask slips, and I can see its blurred outline hanging on my face.
I rush down a hallway to a restroom and stare at my reflection in mirror-polished stainless steel; it’s there, flickering into existence with the impermanence of a far-away radio distress call.
I grasp the mask delicately with pinched fingertips, marveling at its gossamer complexity: a snowflake pattern cut from black crude oil with the same faint acrid aroma.
Why? How? When? My mind asks and answers the same questions in an instant, knowing that I already know the answers:
We wear our mask to survive future pain.
We built our mask from society’s prompts.
We’ve been building and refining the mask from the first moment we felt the anxious termites of shame filling our chest cavity.
“This mask is mine,” I murmur to myself, as TC enters the restroom. I can see their mask covers their entire body.