Face: mouth open in excitement, some clean sinusoidal vibration giving off a constant tone… eyes wide, cheeks flush

This is not a face. This is a mask

Face: Mouth closed, eyes half shut, idly watching what unfolds, skin gray, lights dim

Face watches mask watch mask watched by face

Initial perception: Mask sees mask, believes this is it

Second perception: Face sees mask see mask, believes it is alone, that it is a malfunction of the face to need this mask, that the other masks are faces

Third perception: Face sees mask see mask seen by face, it is not alone, not quite, just disconnected

Riddle: How to discard mask without risk; third perception is conjecture, not corollary

Two faces meet, cold stare, like any other cold stare. Is there something beyond the face? To reach into, pull out

Suppose mask is a reflection of face: thereby a game can be proposed to predict long term benefit to between each other

To play this game, put on a mask. Let masks play out future, smiling, confiding, yelling, crying, screaming, caressing, mourning, living day to day second by second. See all the animosity that could be built up between each other over coming years. How slowly even the expressive mask will be beaten down into some closed off, mutually bitter submission. Exit game, walk away, unphased, uninvested. Only a game

Alternative perspective would be that the mask hides expression. Cast scenes of traffic, crowds, eyes in devices. That this isolated state of being is a dull, subdued existence. That within these inert bodies is an energy dying to burst out, guts splattering across the aisle, infect those around them with a reverant joy. Perhaps these bodies prefer to stay stiched up, keeping their fluids to slosh within their own skin jackets

Peel off the face. Perhaps mind views face as face views mask, for what sake. No sake. Straight faced mold cast, stunning on adaze, pace maker peace. Finger running along open wound, poking in out, to see reaction, no internal reaction, reaching for something more, deeper in wound, what makes tick, what makes bleed, what makes muscle twitch. Uninvolved, unchanging observation for objectivity. Lose touch, become unwanting to muddy clockwork in operation, each part happening at its cue in step, synchronized by perfect mutual prediction. Only in having information flowing back so much as to change nothing at all, then it is isomorphic whether it went back or not, it would go unobserved, by definition unobservable, effectively non existent

Left running, purpose fulfilled. Everything now is farce. Left to own devices, no predetermination, things can now orbit out from their elliptic synchronization, wriggling out from inspection. Is miniture’s self miniture or source?

Wind up toy, fallen over, wriggling in jarred circle, until worn out, no distance travelled, no purpose met

Today spites yesterday