The Masquerade

It was phantasmic. Fantastic. Everyone was elaborately enveloped in drapery fit to their personal synchronizations. Lives were beginning all around and in their midst a young girl whirled herself through the elegant chaos that was so, the masquerade. 

The room was like a ballroom, amassed in a nation's worth of spectators and jewels. High above was a chandelier with crystals that hung like tears and were close count to the number of stars in the sky. It calmly resided over the whole affair. 

Everyone was wearing beautifully ornate masks. Close to the doors were prim and proper ladies in fathomless Victorian ball gowns. The gowns were metallic cream with gilded resonance that trailed up and down their petticoats. Pastel, shimmering florals adorned their bodices as if they were a walking garden of Eden. They all wore beautiful butterfly masks and held fans painted with roses and violets. The masks were richly hued with magentas, vivid tangerines, and glorious metallics and burnished whites. They stood elegantly like mannequins or focal points in a painting. They sighed dreamily and didn't even acknowledge the girl. 

The girl herself was wearing a rather Rimbaud mask. It was grey with deep engravings like wrinkles and a mouth turned down in symbolic silent agony. It had a deep set forehead and no eyebrows and was quite a startling comparison to the girl wearing it for she had her blonde hair in ringlets and a night dress on of pure white.

It was like a mask of death. 

As she moved further through the room, she came upon a group of people dressed in feathers and faux satin. Women wore slips of neon pink and danced to that of music from a time not long ago. Men wore jackets of equal stature adorned with trinkets of lime green and shoes that were as turquoise as a Midwest sky. They danced on feathers and fake pearls and pills while wearing glittering half masks and feathered headbands. The girl's white heeled shoes made a crunching sound on the marble floor as she parted through the crowd. 

Finally she reached the largest gathering. Here everyone was wearing animal masks and were as nonsensical as the clothing they wore. Tigers and lions pounced at each other as panthers sat cross legged adorned in ruby velvet and emerald silk. Monkeys raved in sapphire patent leather as creatures of the sea floated through the dancefloor in cottons the color of night and diamonds that shone like stars. A group of men and women in hyena masks cackled at the sky as the little girl passed by. The howled manically in warning and luxury and gusto. Their teeth shone luminous as they prowled behind the girl. 

The girl finally surpassed the lot of experimental chaos and reached the grand finale. It was a small grouping of oddities the had come to confine that of a ornate chair. Two girls sat next to the chair. They wore dresses of black and white, the colors being split down the middle so that the one on the left had black on her right and the girl on the right had black on her left. They had frizzy wild brown hair and white blindfolds. On the other side was a man in a Captain's uniform with an equally death like and disturbing mask in red. All around were others in masks of grey with were all twisted in penance and injustice. The girl looked ahead towards the throne. There looked to be a rich puddle of blood under it that continued to grow and seconds cascaded into minutes. 

Suddenly, there was a bloodcurdling scream that echoed through the room and stopped the enticing vigor of everyone in the room. It came from a woman who was making a mad dash towards the girl. She had wild hair and eyes and wore what looked to be a hospital gown. She had on no shoes and he feet thumped over the marble as the only sound was her scream. Blue veins were visible up and down her legs and she had small trickles of blood down her arms as she bounded towards the little girl. As she almost managed to surpass all the hyenas the little girl turned around and faced the woman. The woman stopped, dead in her wake as the chandelier began to tremble and finally fall. It fell in the way a piece of paper falls lower into the sea. Unbearably slowly it tumbled down with everyone frozen into place. Finally the chandelier shattered upon the marble, upon the woman. The bits of glass and crystal surged throughout the air hitting many targets and tarnishing the marble with that of a rose colored hue. The woman ceased screaming. 

The girl turned around and looked at her party who nodded their approval. The girl, staining her white heels with the blood of the fallen, scuffled toward the chair and sat down as the blood underfoot started to turn black, and the gilded walls and illuminated paintings began to melt like time.