The Masquerade Ball

By Brian Bosworth
Dedicated to Matthew Kruetzer
January 4, 1999

The world dances before me at this masquerade ball,
Tall white columns hold the graceful ceiling and the tiled floor together.
The transparent silk walls hold the people within their fantasy.


They dance together and alone, joyful and sad,
Their faces of individuality are hidden behind the masks they wear.
Feeling the weight of society upon me, I look for a mask of my own.

I try on a mask of gold and glitter,
Those near to me fall away, and those that are far away draw closer.
The mask, though beautiful on the outside, is rotted inside and I cast it away.

I try on a mask of humble wood,
Behind the dull color of the featureless mask, the world forgets me and dances on.
The uniform cut of the wood wears at my face; I throw it aside.

Next I try on a mask of glass,
It is beautiful and fits my face perfectly, but they can see my face and the reflection of their mask,
They jump and claw at me until they pull the mask away and shatter it.

I have learned a rule of society-
One must dance behind an enigmatic mask when you are at the masquerade ball.
And so I look at the pile of masks on the floor and finally find something beautiful…

I try on a mask of pure white light,
I tremor with feelings of godliness and nobility, and my light shines on all at the ball,
But it burns some of those around me and they seek to take it away. I let them.

In exchange they give me a checkered mask of black and white,
Have I found the mask I am destined to wear in this masquerade ball?
I dance their dance for a time but the mask scalds my face and I tear it away.

What is the justification for having a face when one must wear a mask?
I cease searching through the pile of facades and raise my eyes to the sky,
I am glad, for my vision was limited through of the eye-slits of the masks.

My eyes fall once again on the great powerful columns supporting this fantasy,
Peering closely I see the cracks that are slowly moving through the stone.
Crumbling marble silently cascades from the high ceiling to the fault-ridden tile floor.

Their silken world is decaying, can’t they see beyond their fantasy?
I leap onto a white table and scream at the people behind the masks.
No one hears me, my voice is lost as the music plays louder and the people dance faster.

They dance within this delicate prison, as I stand alone,
They can not see beyond the now moldy silken walls, beyond the illusion they have created
I can see that which is hidden from the eyes behind the masks.

Still dancing they reach for me, silently asking me to dance with them,
They offer me trinkets of jewelry and placebo pills if I would but stay with them forever
The wounds created when marble hits flesh are covered by pieces of decaying silk.

They want me to stay and dance in the masquerade.
But I can not, I can see beyond the fantasy and know that there is more to life
Than what is behind the masks and within the sanctuary of the columns.

I run for the moldy silken walls.
The masqueraders pull me backward, still urging me, begging me, to dance
I pull free and tearing at the walls with my fingernails, I rip through the barrier.

I step through the threshold and suddenly I am free.
The expanse of the universe unfolds before me and I expand, taking it all in.
Infinite wisdom, unmeasured time, and eternal progression weave a beautiful essence.

I turn around to look at the masquerade ball.
I hold their entire world in my hand. I peer inside the miniature fantasy
While I am surrounded by endless creation.

The people in masks are still dancing in their decomposing world
A few remove their masks, revealing themselves to be beasts disguised as masqueraders.
They attack and devour those near to them and chase after those trying to flee.
Their flight of terror is futile,
It is too late to escape the collapsing illusion of the masquerade ball.
I am too big to step back into their miniature world now and so I can do nothing but watch.

The floor opens up, swallowing the survivors whole.
The columns topple over and the high ceiling collapses over the rotten silk walls
The light emanating from the world in my hand dies.

I stand alone
The masqueraders are gone now, devoured by the delusion of their own fantasies,
Their silken world of the masquerade ball has disintegrated into dust.
The dust blows from my hand and into eternity. I am alone. But I am still here.