Masquerade of Death

Death? Sure, I know you. I've known you for as long as I can remember. I've known you as both dominant and vicious, with volcanic power, vomiting up deceit, war, famine and decimation. With a wonderful ability, you masquerade in innocence until, in a final desperate gasp, your victim reaches out, grasps your costume, and with his final act, strips you to reveal the bleached-white hideousness of your terrible face. Yes. I know you, but I see you much differently today than yesterday. Truth has given me an ability to see you as you truly are. Do you know what you are?

There was a time when you appeared in the mask of a Friday night vampire, and, I must admit, on those windy, full-moon-lit nights when wicked fingers of black and white shadows crept across the wall to attack my shivering little body, you paralyzed me with fear. I would call out to my father to come save me from your dreadful wrath, but somehow you clamped your icy fingers over my mouth and no sound would come out.

As I grew into a teenager, you stalked me. But the masks you were wearing made you difficult to recognize, at least until the stroke of midnight when you were revealed. Mike Voll didn't see you as he worked under his car. How you were able to sneak up on him without kicking a stone or crackling a leaf so as to warn him is a credit to your deceitfulness. (You are good at what you do.) It was only as you knocked the jack out from under the car that he saw you . . . recognized you . . . too late!

Was it before or after that (it is hard to recall) you hid behind the mask of suicide? I remember the fat boy, the one no one liked, played with or even talked to. Only since I've grown have I thought about his feelings. But you thought about them, didn't you? You used him, showed him the rope, the ceiling joist in the basement, the way out of his pain! You neither cared about nor considered his parents or brothers and sisters. What about their agony, the self-doubt, the "oh-if-I'd-have-only . . . " thoughts that tormented them.

Vicious! You were a vicious master. Yes, "were" is the proper word, for I've grown since then. I know you have been defeated. Your defeat angered you and you still try your best to hurt those of us who take advantage of your defeat and have thrown off the marks of your service.

You still torment me. You did so when you put on the mask of terminal illness and carried my mother away. Did you gloat over my agony? My tears, tears that had not fallen since childhood, would not stop their flowing. Their salty taste burned my tongue as they rolled down my cheeks into my wailing mouth. Rearing your ugly head in one swift act of rebellion and brutality, you seized my mother, covering her eyes with your endless mist, before she could discover the truth and cast you off like butterflies do their restrictive cocoons. Vicious, that's your name, and tormenting is your favorite activity.

It is true! You are vicious, but you are not the master any longer, are you. You have met the Master, haven't you? Your eyes are dropping, your shoulders seem bent. Yes! I know you met Him at the cross. You taunted. You laughed. You considered yourself indestructible, and in your bravado you mocked. For parts of three days and three nights you wrestled with Him, weakening with each new hold. Can you deny? I've read the account of it. The end came early on a Sunday morning as you lay bloody, battered, beaten and unable to do more than kneel at the feet of the Master who bested you. And now? Your name has been changed to Defeated, and you are no more than a slave to those who serve the Master. You do our bidding and carry us, as the Master directed, from this world to the world of glory.