The top was worn out, worn below the nose, as if it held the nose from running.
The bottom was frazzled, bristled by the beard.
The specks of dust, the stains, the creases...they held memories of months. Plop!
It was raining heavily, and the fear of each battering raindrop erasing his memory little by little somehow breathed life into the mask.
The mask remembered the sound of a sewing machine hemming his edges, and plop! The memory got erased! The old woman selling him for...plop!
The top was worn out, worn below the nose, as if it held the nose from running.
The bottom was frazzled, bristled by the beard.
The specks of dust, the stains, the creases...they held memories of months. Plop!
A cow had sniffed him, and sensing remnants of her butchered sisters, had moved away with a start. The mask, however, was caught in her horn.
People fled from the way, dogs yelped and disappeared, crows followed the frenzied cow like bikers slithering behind an ambulance, even as other cows grazed on the green grass.
It was in this mud that the mask had breathed to life.
A gust of wind carried the mask high, away from the mud, and while startling some birds, he pirouetted with an abandon that only solitude can provide.
"Nice to meet you," said the mask to another that was lying on the ground, dusty with memories. "Were you brought in here by a cow too?"
"Well, you are fat."
"I have six layers of protection, and you? A tattered cloth with two loops."
"Yet," said the mask, "here we are in the mud. Just that a tattered cloth with two loops can fly."
The mask just escaped the memory of that biryani and fell on the floor.
After a while, a lean man entered with a broom, and threw the mask outside, along with plastic bags and travel memories.
"You are not the only one," sang the wind, "staring at the Sun..."
"Really?" chided the mask, fluttering angrily.
The wind carried the mask towards the vast ocean.
