THE LETHARGIC MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH: THE ORDINARY DEATH OF HUMANITY
And now was Humanity indeed beyond the wretchedness of Kharon’s bark. Newly deceased, she wandered through ravens scavenging her limbs and scabious rats devouring the Masque of the Red Death. The blood which concealed her visage slowly possessed them. They acted with the fury of a promethean demon, a lost fragment of human sins, and began to crawl over the white room. The sockets of her lost eyes withered upon the dark blazing dusk.
Beneath the pressure of abominations that overcrowded her narcissism, the rats merged into an ox-like shape, blurred and faceless, wreaking havoc and defeating every pure atom that still existed in life. The sky-no-more collapsed and the white room lost its unblemished innocence. Evil thoughts became its sole intimates. Although Humanity longed to destroy herself countless times, she had not perceived that absolute dread of the Death. The word « monstruous » could not incarnate the void that cristallized her decadent form.
It was then, however, that Humanity mimicked an ashamed prayer. A wild stance that evoked the fear of absolute punishment. It was a sharp cry which fractured the night’s debauch and damnable silence. The unfathomable longing of her soul suffered once and it crushed the infinite mercy of the world, as if Atlas had shrugged. The melancholic waters dried long ago from her sad mind and her heart fell like the liveless corpse of a snake squashed by the fangs of a reddened tyger.
And the switch from which life triggered indefatigable promises melted inside Humanity’s overripe belly. She changed into an unvalued component of life. She died from exhaustion in her typical manner, exaggerating the decay of emotion. And then, Silence spoke, in pristine loneliness, trying to summon an ounce of dolefulness.
Olivier DUPIRE
(MA student at the University Nice Sophia Antipolis/University of Nice Côte d’Azur)
Reading to Understand.