I Went Super Metaphorical - Tumblr Posts

Here's a prompt for you: write about a mask someone wears. Can be fiction, nonfiction (about yourself, an experience, people in general), maybe a poem. What kind of mask is it? What does it look like? Why are they wearing it?

“You can stop, you know.”

The villain froze for a moment, smile almost slipping, and set down their lunch tray. The hero leaned against the table next to them, knuckles white.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” they gestured to themself. “I’m reformed. I already stopped.”

The hero waived a hand. “Not that. I know that, I’m the one who helped you do it.”

The villain kept smiling, even as the edges began to crack like fine china.

“Hero,” they said as gently as they could. “Are you alright?”

The hero stared at them for a moment, as if they weren’t sure what was happening, as if the villain’s very existence confused them. They blew an angry breath out of their nose.

“I’m fine,” the hero said pointedly. “You aren’t.”

The villain ignored them at that, sitting down to stir their lunch. It was half cold and entirely unappetizing, but happy people ate the compound rations and were happy about it. And the villain was reformed, and good, and happy. So they ate.

Their bowl disappeared from in front of them, and they studied the plastic of the table for a moment. When they looked up, the hero’s eyes burned into them.

“Stop. It.”

This time, the villain was the one who sighed. “Can I have my lunch back please?”

The hero threw the bowl an unimpressed look. “What, this crap? Nobody likes this, and I can especially tell that you don’t. Your face is exactly the same as the first time you met me, and you tried to stab me directly after that. So. Stop.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” the villain grit out. “I’m smiling, I’m contributing, I’m doing good things. No more murder, no more crimes. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“I wanted you to want that. I wanted you to have that. I never wanted this.”

“This what, hero.”

The hero gestured to their face.

“That. That smile.”

The villain gave them a dry look, even as their smile faded. “What, I can’t smile?”

The hero regarded them, fingers laced together under their chin, food abandoned. The villain picked at a hangnail and tried to look calm. This was why they had been avoiding the hero—the villain could read them like a book, but the hero could read them just as well.

Someone clattered down the hall, laughing, and then it was just the two of them again.

“You don’t have to be happy,” the hero said quietly, “to be good.”

The fine china, the mask, shattered.

The hero sighed, but it wasn’t triumphant. Relief, maybe. Or sadness.

“Why couldn’t you have left it alone,” the villain’s voice wobbled traitorously. The hero smiled, just slightly. A smile for a smile.

“Because you were drowning in there. And you don’t deserve that.”

“I’m trying to be good,” they murmured. The hero reached out and stilled their hands before they could pick them bloody.

“You are good. But you’re also hurting. You can do both. It’s okay.”

The villain shoulders loosened, as if the hero had stolen some huge burden from them.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” the villain agreed.

The hero smiled, a soft thing.

“Only smile when it doesn’t feel like a burden to do so,” the hero stood, leaning over the villain for a moment.

They left the villain in the lunch room, staring down at their hands.

Months later, when the hero told an awful joke, the villain laughed. They smiled at the hero, and it was warm. So warm.

And the hero smiled too.