The Last Mask - Act 1 Slice 5

The Last Mask


- Act 1 -


- Slice 5 -

Flames ripped through the big top, licking at cloth, wood, and flesh without regard for any of them. Cheers of joy were now replaced by screams of terror, and where barely seconds before families had been enjoying a day together they were now being torn apart.

The show had ended with an unexpected bang and a new performer now took centre stage, demanding the attention of all those around him. The dark ringmaster orchestrating his show with an experienced hand, spreading his destruction with a power that came from somewhere these people couldn't imagine with their limited minds. A place of twisted darkness and violent mirth, beyond their eyes, from where shadows danced to his command and death came quickly to those too slow to flee his grasp.

"Smell that, isn't it wonderful!" said The Harlequin, breathing in the air of the flaming big top, as people continued to try and escape from the destruction he wrought, "The smell of the grease paint, the noise of the crowd, what a delight it is to me."

He twirled a red ribbon around his fingers as his dark eyes quickly searched the people around him for the one he desired, but something wasn't right, this wasn't how it should have been. Where was the one he sought? Tonight was the night they had said he would take up his mask, tonight was the moment he would become, but he wasn't here among the ranks of the dumb.

The Harlequin was shocked to realise his timing was off, how was it possible? His timing was never off, he always delivered his jokes on time, always gave a pitch perfect performance without a step out of place. But he had to acknowledge the fact that he was missing a clown. That he had lost the one he sought on this special night.

"So he isn't crispy the clown or one of his friends here, Quinn?" asked Rex sniffing at one of the thoroughly toasted bodies lying around them, still smouldering.

"No he isn't," said the Harlequin looking perplexed. "I don't understand how I could have got it so wrong."

"Hey, this isn't like you. Your timing is normally impeccable, you always get your punch lines right."

"My timing was off, how strange."

"Well for you it is," said Rex. "Your shows are normally delivered with accurate timing, always a master of perfection, so what happened?

"He should have been here. He should have been one of these painted fools, but something is amiss."

"Evidently," said Rex taking another sniff at a deep fried clown, "but what?"

"Sile?" said the Harlequin glancing towards his twisted mime for help, for an explanation of what could be.

The pale silence that was Sile looked around the flaming big top seeking out what lay beyond the flames, her dark eyes and heightened senses seeking out something not of this place, a trace of a scent in the air that wasn't right.

Beyond the smell of mortal flesh and the sounds of suffering she found a spark, the briefest of lights flashing within the dark, a silence that could only have belonged to one of her kind, the mark of a mime.

"You sense something?" asked the Harlequin noticing that look in her eyes.

Sile moved her hands with a grace that looked out of place for someone with such a twisted form, but her gestures spoke clearly and left no doubt in the others' minds about what she had found.

"One of your kind?" said the Harlequin. "Now what is another mime doing here, so far from home?"

"Up to no good by the looks of it," said Rex. "Trying to ruin our day, trying to destroy our big show. So where is the bitch right now?"

Sile looked beyond the flames, beyond where others could see, and found the spark, found where the silence was lurking, and showed it to her master, showed the Harlequin without words what he wanted to hear.

The Harlequin smiled his sardonic smile, that twisted sneer of pain, and sent forth his shadows towards the silence, towards the one who should not have been here.


The Last Mask Copyright ©2010 Stephen Winterflood