Masks

Last night I dreamt of the devil. I've never done that before. I've dreamt about ghosts and skeletons and frightening beasts, but never the devil himself.
Until last night. Last night I dreamt I made masks for the devil.
I made them among grey leaves under an old, autumn tree; it was grey and knurled itself. Every so often the devil would come and take those masks that he desired. I don't remember much of him, except, strangely, I remember his teeth. I remember his teeth because as he approached he gave me a smile that showed them quite clearly. It should have been scary but wasn't. They were boney white, way too white, and they were larger then any I have ever seen. And for some reason they reminded me of eternity and made me think desperately of escape.
But it was not because I was afraid of him. I wasn't. I felt that I knew my place, that he knew it too, and that I did good work so I had nothing to fear.
Still, there was a feel of eternity in his teeth and it made me want to leave.
So when the devil had left with his masks I decided to attempt my escape. For cover I put on one of the masks he had left. I knew that the mask wouldn't fool the devil, but that it would fool most everyone else, all those who strangely were absent, but who I knew lurked about.
Though the details of my escape are no longer clear, they have been lost in the fog of my consciousness, I managed to get away. I hid at first in a neighbors house, in the room with my best friends sister, and then later, having been forced to flee as my friend became the devil, I lay hidden in a field of tall, ripe barley.
Until that time I kept thinking that I must continue to run. This gripped me with fear. But among the barley my fear was replaced and for a moment I felt a profound sense of freedom. I realized that I was no longer a slave to my labor of making masks for the devil. I felt strong and in control.
But it didn't last. It was replaced by a much more insidious thought.
A terrible thought! Much worse then fear! I was free from my labor, yes, but I was gripped by a new slavery, one subsumed under a different name. I would always be on the run from the devil, yes, but worse, I had only the world around me, I was limited by it, and my freedom was contained to what it could offer.
I began to wake up, and in that half-conscious swirl of dreams and bed covers it occurred to me that all my freedom could be struck down by simple perspective. That I would always be running in this finite world, of which everything was terribly grey. It would never be absolute. And that the devil would always be able to see through my mask.
I woke up like that. I went to the bathroom to look at my pallid skin and sunken eyes. And I thought to myself quite lucidly now that there is no freedom out there at all, it is only an illusion, and thus all freedom must exist inside.
- posted by Sigurd4/06/2005 11:58:00 AM