The Mask

I put on my mask to get on the bus. Everyone inside was wearing one. Small masks, big masks, wide masks, thin masks, thick masks, colorful masks, plain masks, blue masks, white masks, triangle shaped masks… They came in all shapes and sizes. I really didn’t understand why people were wearing them at all!

On the next stop my school friend came into the bus.

“Hi Luka.” I said to him.

“Hello Stefan!” He called back to me.

“How was your weekend? Did you get your homework done?” “ I did.” I told him, “Hey, do you want to come over to my house?” I asked.

“Yes, why not!” he replied while we got off the bus.

I took off my mask and said “What’s the big thing with these masks? There driving me crazy!”.

“No idea. Do you want to play risk?” He said as we came into my house.

“Sure,” I replied, but what I really wanted to do is to talk about masks.

The game didn’t go so well – I lost North America, Australia and my part of Asia – but I didn’t care because it was just a game.

“Central America to Venezuela attacking with five armies” he called out and I lost South America too.

We then talked about masks – again – and played another game which I won. It was almost dusk when Luka said he had to go home. He lived far away so he had to take a bus to get home. I decided to go with him to his house then come back. We both forgot our masks at my house so we boarded the bus without one. All the people in the bus wearing masks started yelling in unison: MASK. MASK. MASK. MASK…

Suddenly they all jumped at us yelling. We left the bus and ran back toward my house. The mob of masked people followed us all the way to my house. We ran inside and locked my door. Panting, we went upstairs to my room.

“That was strange” Luka said.

“It really was,” I said and continued, “I knew half the people in that bus. They wouldn’t have attacked me. That thing,” by thing I meant mask, “I think it controls you”.

“Oh, here it is!” Luka yelled “my mask!”

“No! I said the masks control you!” I yelled to him but before I could do anything, he put on his mask.

He started yelling: MASK, MASK, MASK, MASK, MASK…