myth for carnation

In the other place there was a hall with many masks; many masks, indeed. There was a mask for you and a mask for me. There was a watcher and a keeper who stood sentinel in that hall. The keep of the masks is the only one who has no mask at all. The watcher has a mask that changes each time it is looked at. The keeper’s face is as clear as air. Their eyes are as dark as the place between dreams, they could not see.

The watcher stood in the west. The keeper would wander the halls making sure no one would come in. We are not meant to see this hall.

The walls were tall as skyscrapers. They glimmered marbled like sunlight on water.

The keeper wanted, however, to be human. I don’t know why.

When the watcher slept the keeper would feel the wall, searching the faces with hands as soft as a summer breeze, over the cheeks and eyes and foreheads and noses.

The keeper found one one night on the longest night of the year. And the keeper put it on and at once the sun came out and the keeper sensed a great field before them. Salt from ocean played, subtle on the wind.

Overcome with the most lovely scent, the new human could hear every insect, ever bird, every strand of wind that plaited the grasses. They could feel air fill their lungs and cool them from the inside. They could feel the wildfire of their heart and they let the scent follow them and found a small creature and they felt it was flowers. They heard its small voice

“I am the watcher. I see even when I sleep, you must have known. Now that you stole another’s mask, they will always wonder why they are not entirely themselves. You have no right to a mask. You are keeper”

“I needed to be alive.” Was all the keeper could say in response.

“You will regret this. There will no longer be a keeper in the hall of masks. Now all I can do is watch as each of the masks are stolen off the wall by anyone.

The carnation drew a tear up in its small eye for it knew how sacred the masks were, and that they might not - they would not - be honored in the way they were meant to.

“They must be alive,” the keeper responded to the watcher, as if they could see the watcher’s thoughts. “This is all they wanted.”

The watcher is the carnation in the window box and can see you when you take a mask off the wall. You will place the mask on your face in the morning and see the world again, through the eyes of the keeper. Maybe now the walls are now empty, with a handful of masks still there, masks no one but the watcher has seen before.