Masks

“A god can be simultaneously in two or more places – like a melody, or like the form of a traditional mask. And whenever he comes, the impact of the presence is the same: it is not reduced through multiplication. Moreover, the mask in a primitive festival is revered and experienced as a veritable apparition of the mythical being that it represents – even though everyone knows that a man made the mask and that a man is wearing it. The one wearing it, furthermore, is identified with the god during the time of the ritual of which the mask is a part. He does not merely represent the god; he is the god.” (Excerpt from Joseph Campbell’s, Primitive Mythology)

He was once told he had a life of his own. But he never felt he owned his own life, even when he liberated himself of the confines of his own room. He took a walk to relieve the pressure and queasiness in his chest and stomach. He felt nauseated, uncomfortable, sick, and diseased. He could find no consolation in congratulating himself for appreciation of the ephemeral. He was hard pressed for time. Life was eating him alive. He needed to piss. The cold misty wind sent shocked his vibration the moment he opened his door. With the weather cold he could have easily turned back but he pushed onward. Even though physically, inside would be much more comfortable, he found the being outside in the cold, hands numb, dick cold, balls shriveling, needing to piss, where he needed to be. This is where he belonged there and now. He didn’t need any more comfort. Comfort was what sickened him.

He was paralyzed, fat on the food of obsession. He navigated through the dirty streets and finally snaked his way to the park. Slouching there in that verdant field, he felt the ravenous dimension that consumed him – it was nature. He was eager to escape its jaws, but he wanted to feed himself to this beast. He wanted to nourish and be one with it. But how could he unite with what was masked? All he felt was suffering. And yet, beauty surrounded him at every turn; its secrets were teasing him. Still there wasn’t a tree, a flower, or bird that was resonant. How come he couldn’t recognize what stared at him directly?

They were people joyfully playing ball. Watching this experience, laying on that hill, he contemplated… “They are just energy." But this thought alone couldn’t quench his desire. He imagined them driven, tinkered with by some humored mechanic; there was an undeniable factory, from which they have all come.

He imagined them eating each other, ripping at each other’s limbs; the joy of competition was all-consuming. They weren’t people anymore they were pests. They were people by name only. They were parasitic, walking biorhythmic eco-systems. His vision suddenly became available to him again. Only this time, tens of thousands times stronger than it was before. He could see the bacteria on the flesh of the people. They was a whole other game going on simultaneously, affecting, being affected by the play of the larger one.

He saw a completely different picture under magnification: the players tore into each other’s flesh, sinking their teeth and germs into one another; fornicating and dividing on their moist bodies. In the blink of an eye, the field turned blood red. He could see only warfare and soldiers from Iraq, old growth forests being destroyed, married to fantastic entheogenic rituals. A cloud of plastic made its way over the field, and plastic bottles rained down from the sky.