I was sitting in the morning meeting today, listening the usual bullshit, you know, and I felt this weird release in my face. I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror, and my damn face has cracked. You know, the face you put on over your real face...and I could hear a high-pitched whine coming out of the crack, almost like a boiler beginning to fail under load.
I'm not sure, but the whining sounded like maniacal laughter and screams all mixed together with obscenities and the stated urge to slap the living dogshit out of everyone around me.
I put a bandaid over the crack, Cram, but I'm not sure it's gonna hold. The pressure is just too great. I think it's going to let go completely, and God only knows what the results will be.
Did Jesus ever have days like this, Cram?
I'm sitting in my office typing this, because I'm worried that the crack might be visible by now, and having your face explode at work is bad form. It just isn't done. You become one of those workplace legends..."Hey, remember that maintenance manager we had that time? He was doing fine, and then one day outta nowhere, BAM! His head exploded. We had to have him carted off by paramedics, under police supervision. No, he's never been seen since."
Ho ho! Are you ready for that, Professor? Are you ready for the finals? Are you prepared to feel that slight loss of pressure in your forehead that signifies the fact that you are about to show everyone in the office who and what you really are?
Well, when that happens, use some silicon. A little caulking. Yeah, that's the trick. Just tell everyone it's burn ointment. Tell them something. And when you figure out what to tell them, tell me, because I'm stuck in my office and I have another meeting in an hour. And that crack, Cram, for the love of GOD, Cram, that crack is spreading!
Some feedback on this would definitely help me execute my responsibilities in relation to this more effectively.
Oops, that was the wrong half talking.
I meant that, mostly, but it's kind of a part of the problem. See, my face cracked too, but straight down the middle. Half just sort of sheered and sloughed off. The voice, the persona, the attitude oscillates now (I track the Hertz for fun).
They suspect something is wrong, but they haven't noticed yet. (My co workers) I can be tricky. I know how to move. I keep sort of sideways to everyone. I'm not always able to match up the right half to the right voice, so they suspect, of course, but I'm starting to play it off as part of who I am.
Two – Faced Richter, har har!
Professional presentation being paramount for workplace co worker interactions, so I feel it's best too...... Damnit, there he goes again.
I used to be able to switch effortlessly, before this. One face would just sort of emerge over and bury the other, like the way bathwater slowly covers you balls. As I got older though, at the office more, it got harder. Maybe parts in my brain wear down, like in my car, or maybe I just got bored an lackadaisical, letting the personality / face switching muscles atrophy. Either way, I'm still stuck with this half perfect grey mask.
Some people like it, but then again I still care enough to filter what I'm saying, and try to tilt the right face into work for the given time. Eventually I'll show too much, get too weird, and they'll throw me into the restroom and beat me senseless with bats. Or I'll REALLY let loose. Then HR will ride out of the west like Mongols and strike of my head with a saber.
(When my head falls, and the remaining half breaks off, I wonder which half will be underneath?)
So yeah, Cram, if you know ANYTHING that could help. Please. Clue a brother in.
I don't know about Cram, but...
Really, y'all? Your face is slipping? That ain't nothing but a thing. I have a secret:
They can't tell when you don't care anymore.
Sure, they want to see the productivity, and they want to see the results, but what they can't see is whether it has touched that inner core of WHO YOU ARE. And that's the key. You see, the cracks in your mask don't come from the outside. That mask is as tough as Kevlar. All the shit that gets thrown at it, like a sneeze guard at the buffet at the Shanghai Palace, it can handle it. That's not the problem.
The problem is when you think that it all means something. There are these large hooks, spinning around your paycheck, and if they get you, they pull you in to their game. The game that says 40 hours aren't enough. We asked you to give up a third of your days, but we really want more. And we'll make you believe that you owe us. So bow. Scrape. Comply.
But you know all they want is for you to tell them everything is fine. And you know that your brain is larger than this job. So if you get the work done, there's no problem. And I don't mean give them what they want. I mean give them what they need, and be the best motherfucker at doing that. Trust me, their needs are tiny, and their wants are huge. So give them what the need, and leave. Just go. The shit will be waiting for you in the morning, but it won't have changed. You can deal with the important shit in the first three hours. The bullshit you can play with for days.
So, you want to know where the cracks from? They're internal, buddy. They come from buying into the game, from not taking your pleasure where you find it. If you know how the game is run, you can work the game to your advantage. You can take that extra half hour at lunch, you can get that favor, you can roll out early, because you've won the game, and you decided to keep playing.
But if you've swallowed the kool-aid, if you ate the wafer, if you think your life is tied to your Eight Hours of Indentured Servitude....
You're going to crack.
My face fell off a while ago. There was always something wrong with it, it wasn't quite on right ever, always slipping. It never cracked, it wasn't brittle, it just never fit right to begin with. I think mine was defective... there was always leaking around the edges. People would be polite and pretend not to see it, but I could feel it running down my neck, wailing. The stench was unbelievable, and sometimes when it was particularly bad people would come up to talk to me and then back away, horrified. There would be times when I would try to talk but you couldn't hear what I was saying over the screeching din that was leaking out where my face had gone askew.
I tried, but it got harder and harder to keep it on straight. In the middle of a business meeting hysterical shrieking laughter would leak out and drip in gibbous strands from my chin. At the theater, blisters of inconsolable sobbing would rupture during the comedic punch lines. Sometimes I would walk out of a movie and not realize until I went to the bathroom that it was only half-on, wetly hanging over my neck like a glistening bandanna. Nobody could look at me. I became invisible.
It got looser and looser and started to lose its shape, and then it just fell off. You would think I would remember exactly when it happened, would at least have felt it slide off or heard it plop to the floor when it fell, but I didn't notice until after it was gone. I had pretty much given up trying to keep it on right by then, so it wasn't such a huge difference at first... I had taken to keeping to myself, to spare the others. I couldn't work with people anymore, and I went out at night to run my errands, late at night when the only other people out are broken people. I was out late, one night, grocery shopping, when I noticed it was gone. One of the broken people spoke directly to me, looked right at me, and I reached up to adjust my face and it wasn't there.
But all of a sudden, I could breathe.
this thread is making my day.
I'm screaming.
Not really screaming, but what's the difference really? The only thing that separates the inside screaming from the outside screaming is just a layer of skin, and we're told that skin deep isn't that deep at all.
Anyway, I'm screaming because I saw the cold, grey walls of the friendly family clinic after a 3 year reprieve, nestled deep inside the towering hospital complex. I'm screaming because despite my presenting a great track record in register accuracy, one mistake brings me to within a hair's length from losing my employment along with any means to continue my education. I'm screaming because my Sociology class presents me with interviews of people who identify themselves as WASPs and that they really are just a better, nicer group of people, but then 5 seconds later, show them feeling uncomfortable and squirmy when a black couple comes to their party. But most of all, I'm screaming because just when I thought that everything might turn out okay, my cat, which I've nursed back to health after her jumping out of the car, get's diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I get to watch her slowly starve herself, until that last moment when we watch the vet push needles into her because she wants to die.
I'm screaming on the inside and all I want to do is start screaming on the outside and shake every person I see.
But I've got work to go to in an hour and I've just got to make sure that the mass of people get what they want for bargain prices.
Quote from: Nigel on October 08, 2009, 08:14:49 PM
My face fell off a while ago. There was always something wrong with it, it wasn't quite on right ever, always slipping. It never cracked, it wasn't brittle, it just never fit right to begin with. I think mine was defective... there was always leaking around the edges. People would be polite and pretend not to see it, but I could feel it running down my neck, wailing. The stench was unbelievable, and sometimes when it was particularly bad people would come up to talk to me and then back away, horrified. There would be times when I would try to talk but you couldn't hear what I was saying over the screeching din that was leaking out where my face had gone askew.
I tried, but it got harder and harder to keep it on straight. In the middle of a business meeting hysterical shrieking laughter would leak out and drip in gibbous strands from my chin. At the theater, blisters of inconsolable sobbing would rupture during the comedic punch lines. Sometimes I would walk out of a movie and not realize until I went to the bathroom that it was only half-on, wetly hanging over my neck like a glistening bandanna. Nobody could look at me. I became invisible.
It got looser and looser and started to lose its shape, and then it just fell off. You would think I would remember exactly when it happened, would at least have felt it slide off or heard it plop to the floor when it fell, but I didn't notice until after it was gone. I had pretty much given up trying to keep it on right by then, so it wasn't such a huge difference at first... I had taken to keeping to myself, to spare the others. I couldn't work with people anymore, and I went out at night to run my errands, late at night when the only other people out are broken people. I was out late, one night, grocery shopping, when I noticed it was gone. One of the broken people spoke directly to me, looked right at me, and I reached up to adjust my face and it wasn't there.
But all of a sudden, I could breathe.
Holy Mittens, Nigel!
(http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/af205/spiff_bucket/holymittens.gif)
My face isn't cracked or missing or even defective... I don't think it ever existed. I have a thin one that I put on when I have to be civil to someone I think is the biggest piece of shit in the world... Like the pigs that arrest you because your friend decided it would be funny to steal road construction flags.
No, mine exists for small reasons, honestly. But, only as I deal more and more with the public.
I have been unemployed since January, and I fear that I have forgotten how to wear the mask or just misplaced it all together...
I fear that my facade will show through to the wrong people.
I haven't learned the art of face changing. I had my face, my "more normal than me but still quirky because I'm selling wine and you want your drug dealer to be a little unusual right?" face, and it worked, I enjoyed my job, my bosses liked me, my co-workers liked me, people bought lots of wine from me.
Then the new boss came in, new boss so the old bosses wouldn't have to work so much. And he didn't like faces like that. But I'd been wearing it for 3 years, and it worked for everything else. Maybe i thought i was too good at my job, maybe a little more humility would have saved me. I don't know in any case, I didn't change my face quickly enough, well, at all really, so now I'm appealing the ruling that says i was fired for breaking the rules. Because i didn't break any rules, unless he made new ones and didn't tell me about them. I just kept a face that was obsolete.
This is why I have lots of different faces. One for every occasion. Some occasions don't call for a mask of course, the real trick is figuring out which face is appropriate for which occasion and when it's not appropriate to wear a mask. You wouldn't wear gym shorts to work and you wouldn't wear a suit to the gym.
\
(http://www.webreference.com/3d/column9/bumpmapmask.jpg)
You have to be careful with your faces, if you wear a certain face for too long it's bound to break and it might even deform your face. Of course you don't have to wear the face, but sometimes it's beneficial to if you do. Masks can protect you. Masks can get you what you need. Masks can be a useful tool, but like any tool, if abused it can break and even hurt you when it does.
\
(http://www.webreference.com/3d/column9/maskwithoutbumpmap.jpg)
Make more than one mask. Once you have enough, you may freely decide whether one with a crack is useful enough to warrant some time in the shop, or should just be smashed and replaced with a new one. But remember- once cracked, they are never as strong as they once were.
Oh man I know what you're talking about. I'm pretty new at this job, you know, so I was pretty freaked out when my eyelids and half of my left eyebrow split off and dropped onto my lap (the right one is still on and only got patchy at places so it has a crazy zig-zaggy style to it that I'm really into right now). I thought it was from staring at these computer screens all day, what with one being on each side of me then a strategically placed television on a third side so to escape them I'd need to burrow.
My co-workers were getting pissed at me because they thought I was staring at them all the time. I mean, I get it, because I definitely was staring at them. I couldn't help it, I saw them in a whole new light, which is to say total light because my damn eyelids were tucked away in a tissue in my wallet so that I can staple them back on when I have some privacy. Anyway sometimes the light showed me great things like a bunch of them are just working stiffs who want to make their buck and go home to their families and I'm COOL WITH THAT, you know, if that's what they want to do. I mean these are the guys who know more about personal finance and not getting fucked over better than most bankers. Sometimes they just buy dumb shit and eat like crap until they have to get gastric bypass surgery.
Then the other ones are all about Being In Charge and I don't like those co-workers of mine now that my eyelids have fallen off. My work is a jail, not in the metaphorical sense of having black iron bars and stone walls and stuff but in the literal sense of us keeping rapists and gang members behind electronically sealed doors. So those Being In Charge people are pretty much everywhere on BOTH sides of the cell doors. Yesterday one of them was pissed at me because I parked too close to his car so he was telling me off in the parking lot.
The guy kept telling me that if my car was too close to his when he left he'd "go right through the fuckin' door." So I told him I'd move it soon and asked him when he'd be leaving and he said "whenever I'm ready to go." Now my eyeballs are all burning because there's a nice fall breeze outside but there's nothing to protect them but I knew what to do in this situation. I walked up to him and said "What's your name?" He gave me his name and I said "Hi, I'm EaterOfClowns," which is my real name, and I shook his hand and said "nice to meet you." Just then he wasn't Being In Charge, I showed him that I could do it too and that it wasn't always the same as Being A Dick.
I mean, maybe if all the people who are into Being In Charge stopped and thought about that Someone Else In Charge we could find that person and show them what it's like to have their faces crack, that it's not all that bad. It should be easy to find them, right? After all, I don't have any eyelids anymore.
I move within several circles of friends, well, most of them are acquaintances, but I have a few friends around the place. This isn't so much me being a "social butterfly", but more out of necessity, and my constantly changing personality.
Moving around a lot, both different homes and to different groups means my face changes a lot. Or at least it appears to. My face is really a mirror. I reflect the people I am around, trying to blend in. If you agree with people it makes life easier, for both of you.
But I tire of that quickly, so, when I am in a new place, I have to try and find people who I don't need to reflect. People who will accept me for who I am (at the risk of sounding cheesy) or, better yet, people as fucked up as I am.
It is a two way mirror though, so sometimes, when the lights are dim, people can see back through. An off colour joke, some whinging about the state of the world, laughing when everyone else is serious. That's when I see the blank stares, the looks of disgust, the nervous laughs. And I get paranoid.
I laugh silently these days, because otherwise they start prepping the sedatives. I look away and smile to myself when I walk down the street, but try not to let it show. Because you aren't allowed to be happy in real life, only when you are watching the latest sitcom.
But occasionally you find a person who doesn't want to see your face. Who isn't repulsed by the squishy thing underneath. Who laugh with you when everyone else is sad. Someone who can survive seven years bad luck.
I lost my face. The good one, that tells the best lies. I didn't need it for such a long time, I was using a face that smiled all the time and just told little lies when the customer asked the wrong questions. But now I need the old face back and I can't find it.
I'm trying to make a new one, I know so much more about making them than when i made the old one, but I don't know if I'll finish it before they realize I'm not wearing one.
I have lots of faces. I keep them stashed in my bag, take them out when needed, wear them around the appropriate people. They don't break or melt in the rain, and keep clean with a bit of mild soap and water.
These faces are masks, in a way. I mean, they're all MY faces but in some ways they don't belong to me. They belong to that guy on the bus, to that professor, to the girls walking down the street, to the students in the classroom, in the government chambers. The faces are strange illusions casting a spell, not on them, but on me. So I AM the person they see, which is the person they want to see, which is the face I wear for them from them.
I have another face too. That face doesn't come off, it sticks underneath all the others. I can't put it in my bag, and I have to clean it in place. This face is the one I like the most, because it's the only one that belongs to ME. I'm the only person that sees it, reflected in the mirror alone after a shower. Then I walk outside and pick a face at random, because you know, I just HAVE to wear one. If people saw my face, the one underneath the others, they wouldn't recognize me. And who can blame them? They see the faces they gave to you, the ones in your bag.
Some days I want to burn the bag of faces.
This is the face before I was born.
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/2360/tracts/ninmonky.jpg)
Quote from: Pope Benny on October 09, 2009, 03:47:50 AM
This is the face before I was born.
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/2360/tracts/ninmonky.jpg)
The monkey or Jack Nicholson?
Quote from: La Terrorista on October 09, 2009, 03:51:26 AM
Quote from: Pope Benny on October 09, 2009, 03:47:50 AM
This is the face before I was born.
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/2360/tracts/ninmonky.jpg)
The monkey or Jack Nicholson?
Jack Nicholson! Christ, I didn't evolve from the monkeys.
This face will not last forever. I will leave school and tolerant friends and I will have to get myself a nice, inoffensive face so that other people will be able to look at me long enough to give me a paycheck.
But I've been shaping this face for a few years now, and what's underneath has been slowly changing as I have matured into adulthood. This mask, this face has shaped what is underneath, although I've always been unsure as to what exactly was underneath to begin with. I have grown into this face, and it is actually rather comfortable by now.
I do not know if I will be able to take this face off when the time comes. Even if it cracks, what's underneath is so similar that it will be essentially the same thing, only with a bit more sensitive flesh and oozing fluids. But I will have to do something, won't I? Maybe one day I'll have to layer another face over it, another mask. The eyes won't quite match up and it'll be slightly off-kilter, but hopefully I'll only need to wear it during the day.
Or maybe not. Maybe I'll eventually stop being a silly youth, strip off this face and put the new, workplace-friendly one on good and snug and let it break in what's underneath. It'll bruise and restrict my movements in odd ways, but you get used to that eventually, right?
Right?
They will hear about it by the water cooler.
Their thoughts will return to it as they stand in the shower, between the Waking World and the Dreaming.
As the traffic backs up bumper to bumper, they will look out the window and see a sea of scowling faces. They will feel the scowls lapping at the shores of the mind like an unrelenting tide. These are the faces of primates in kill mode. There are only two possible responses: fight or flight.
They will hear about it from a friend, about the day his face cracked. As they turn the story over in their mind, as it ripples through the Dreaming, something begins to grow. Something fresh and wild stirs, and it is hungry. It must be fed.
He looked at the clock that day, watched the minute hand slowly come full circle. I can't leave early, he thought, I'll get written up, I'll get fired, and this will be the end.
The next day, instead of the tap tap tapping on a keyboard, they heard the whirr of the vaccuum. The cubicle would need to be cleaned thoroughly before someone else was interred there. Someone walked by and raised an eyebrow at the old hispanic woman. "Feathers," she said as she pushed the vacuum. She didn't say more because she was mostly in the Dreaming.
He watched the hour hand that day, the minute hand, the second hand (almost time to go home now), he looked past the hands into the clockwork behind it. And he felt the cogs and springs in his mind pushing against one another, making the whole human machinery move.
A memory bubbled to the surface, a snippet of an old dream. While he was in the Dreaming, he made a new gear. He installed it years ago. As the morning alarm shunted him from the Dreaming, the dream was gone. But now he remembered.
As 5:00 approached, the springs pulled in every single direction. The gears turned silently, approaching the end of the work day, approaching the edge of the waking world, and then ---
the shell cracked. A tiny beak poked through, hatching. The baby bird must fight its way into this world, it must crack the veil and push its way past, it must prove to the cold material universe that it is an unstoppable force.
The office was filled with the sound of birds, a whole flock of birds all singing. His body slumped back in the chair, relieved, the machine's dream was finally awake.
They would hear about it by the water cooler. That day, his head exploded into a flock of birds, all singing. They would think about it in the shower. They would think about it in traffic. About the machinery, and the Dreaming. They would begin to dream of a new machine.
The flock of birds did not clock out as they left the building.
|
(http://www.uncp.edu/art/steeds/gallery/no%20more%20music%20could%20be.jpg) |
Oh, holy fuck.
Someone lock the thread. Cram, that was fucking perfect.
Fucking WOW! That was worth the wait. Holy shit.
But we won't be locking these threads. I want to hear from everyone with something to say.
Apologies; I got carried away.
For you, Cram:
:mittens: :mittens:
NICE :mittens:
WOW.
Cram, that made my nipples harden and all the hair on my arms stand up.
That last line was perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Holy shit.
Perfect imagery.
In some weird way this video reminded me of this thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEG_JXsyvG0&feature=related
:aaa:
:mittens:
I haven't seen my real face.
The smile I see in the mirror is the same one I show to the world, and I cannot remember a time when it was not so. Things must have always been this way. I wear this mask even when I'm alone, because if I take it off, it's never going to go back on.
And to be honest, I'm afraid to see what's underneath.
I haven't seen my real face, but I know it's there because I can feel it, squirming beneath the mask. Struggling... and it disgusts me.
This mask is cool to the touch. And it's solid. More solid than anything I can imagine. And it's clean, and smooth. And other people seem to react positively to the expression it wears,
But the face beneath, it struggles so. The pressure builds and builds, and it's uncomfortable. It's painful.
It's painful, and the glowing box says that it can relieve a little of that pressure. I just have to stop thinking. I just have to stop thinking and let the box think for me, and my head won't explode.
The pressure builds as I flip through the newspaper, but I'm not reading the news. I'm aiming for the TV Guide, and the comics in the back. I'm aiming for the release that comes from any little distraction. I just have to stop thinking.
Sometimes, when even the glowing box isn't enough to let the air out of my head, when I smile and I want to scream, there's a tightness in my cheeks. A tightness in my cheeks, and it feels like someone is squeezing my lips, and I know that my face is pressing against the edges of the mask. And the pressure builds until I'm sure that the mask is going to shatter.
And should it shatter, it would explode outwards, violently bombarding those nearby with deadly fragments, as the face beneath lifts its gaze to the sky and gives a barbaric howl. And it doesn't stop howling, because it's been silenced for so long.
I don't even think anyone would notice, because they're all wearing masks as well. They're all wearing masks, but unlike me, they don't know it. So the fragments hurtle towards their heads, and they ricochet off, and bury themselves in the dirt. And they'd exchange glances with each other as I scream, and scream, and scream but by the time they've left the room they've already forgotten the screaming.
I don't even think they would notice, unless their faces had already cracked. Unless they'd already felt that pressure themselves, they'd remain numb.
It doesn't crack, though, this mask.
It doesn't crack, and sometimes that makes me feel safe.
What would everybody say, if I went to work without a face?
It doesn't crack. This mask.
And sometimes that makes me feel trapped.
Quote from: Cramulus on October 09, 2009, 03:03:41 PM
They will hear about it by the water cooler.
Their thoughts will return to it as they stand in the shower, between the Waking World and the Dreaming.
As the traffic backs up bumper to bumper, they will look out the window and see a sea of scowling faces. They will feel the scowls lapping at the shores of the mind like an unrelenting tide. These are the faces of primates in kill mode. There are only two possible responses: fight or flight.
This is going to be amazing to illustrate.
They will hear about it from a friend, about the day his face cracked. As they turn the story over in their mind, as it ripples through the Dreaming, something begins to grow. Something fresh and wild stirs, and it is hungry. It must be fed.
He looked at the clock that day, watched the minute hand slowly come full circle. I can't leave early, he thought, I'll get written up, I'll get fired, and this will be the end.
The next day, instead of the tap tap tapping on a keyboard, they heard the whirr of the vaccuum. The cubicle would need to be cleaned thoroughly before someone else was interred there. Someone walked by and raised an eyebrow at the old hispanic woman. "Feathers," she said as she pushed the vacuum. She didn't say more because she was mostly in the Dreaming.
He watched the hour hand that day, the minute hand, the second hand (almost time to go home now), he looked past the hands into the clockwork behind it. And he felt the cogs and springs in his mind pushing against one another, making the whole human machinery move.
A memory bubbled to the surface, a snippet of an old dream. While he was in the Dreaming, he made a new gear. He installed it years ago. As the morning alarm shunted him from the Dreaming, the dream was gone. But now he remembered.
As 5:00 approached, the springs pulled in every single direction. The gears turned silently, approaching the end of the work day, approaching the edge of the waking world, and then ---
the shell cracked. A tiny beak poked through, hatching. The baby bird must fight its way into this world, it must crack the veil and push its way past, it must prove to the cold material universe that it is an unstoppable force.
The office was filled with the sound of birds, a whole flock of birds all singing. His body slumped back in the chair, relieved, the machine's dream was finally awake.
They would hear about it by the water cooler. That day, his head exploded into a flock of birds, all singing. They would think about it in the shower. They would think about it in traffic. About the machinery, and the Dreaming. They would begin to dream of a new machine.
The flock of birds did not clock out as they left the building.
|
(http://www.uncp.edu/art/steeds/gallery/no%20more%20music%20could%20be.jpg) |
shit that didn't post correctly.. i'm a fucking tard...
This is going to be amazing to illustrate.
All my masks have this 'flaw' baked into them.
You see i had a very protected childhood and didn't need a mask until i was years older than is normal.
This slow start has given me ample time to analyze people in their maskforming days.
When i finally started making my first mask (it was a hue of blue only slighty darker than baby blue and the cutest thing you've ever seen) i already was addicted to a unobstructed view of other peoples masks.
I had to make my masks so they wouldn't limit my line of sight (as long as it didnt conflict with the mask's other purposes, ofcourse). So i kept the eyeholes from growing as far shut as they usually do. Sadly this had the ununintended side effect of making my real windows to the soul easier to look into.
There were two negative effects and one positive effect. Firstly i found it very hard to block out the true faces of almost all people around me and so many emotional storms are exhausting. Secondly i could never hide all of me from those that would be scared of seeing the real me without looking away. The positive effect was an increased attraction to those with eyeholes wich are still partly open, a rare occurance but worth it for every time i met a human.
Now i am years older and years more set in my ways.
I still wear my masks regularly, and though they are well maintained they are starting to collect scars and most are quite chipped. Cracking hasn't really occured yet, im not sure wether this is a good or a bad thing but in case others wish to try to emulate me: make your masks loose and change them regularly.
(http://i890.photobucket.com/albums/ac107/Nivek-Rayne/Birds0001.jpg)
Thought this would do more justice than a comic.
your drawings are getting better and better, NiveK!!!
Wow, with the birds and everything. :mittens:
Nice!
Nivek is like a rollercoaster of mittens and win!
Also, my own contribution:
I never noticed my mask too much before, but it became readily apparent when I started working at restaurants. You can get away with small, thin masks at school or home, if your face isn't that ugly, but working at a restaurant requires you to be smiling ALL THE TIME. Seriously, just slather your face with several inches of concrete and carve a smile on the fucker. Smile when you seat the people, smile when you take their orders and refill their drinks, put a happy tone in your voice when you talk to them. I wonder if they realize how much of it is fake.
You see, sometimes while I'm smiling and telling them that their table is right this way, something slips. Maybe it's in the face, or maybe the voice, but it's there. A little twitch in my face -my real face- that shows through. I can see that they see it, but they don't say anything. As long as I get them to their table and clear up after them, they don't care too much. I'm only a bus-boy though. The servers have much better, thicker masks; I'm not even sure if they come off.
I am beginning to suspect that what's under my mask isn't what I though was there. I've felt more horror than mirth, recently. More rock, and not so much roll.
Isn't that funny? You can even fool yourself with your mask.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 27, 2009, 08:04:41 PM
I am beginning to suspect that what's under my mask isn't what I though was there. I've felt more horror than mirth, recently. More rock, and not so much roll.
Isn't that funny? You can even fool yourself with your mask.
The scary part is when you glance in the mirror before you get in the shower. Your mask hanging on the towel hook in the mirror behind you. You look in the mirror and scream because you don't know who is looking back out of the mirror and it sure as hell isn't you!
I don't take my mask off in daylight anymore. I don't know that I want to know who is under it.
(http://i890.photobucket.com/albums/ac107/Nivek-Rayne/369137-602f74dd-04d2-4459-a134-fd82.jpg)
Quote from: NiveKRayne on December 18, 2009, 08:49:49 PM
(http://i890.photobucket.com/albums/ac107/Nivek-Rayne/369137-602f74dd-04d2-4459-a134-fd82.jpg)
God, that's disturbing.
Also would like to point out that the guy who did that art next to Cram's piece does some other cool stuff
http://www.uncp.edu/art/steeds/gallery/
BUMP
Ah cheers nigel.
Apparently i did read this after all. Will reread all of it.