away with paper smiles

A word too little, unflinching glances, fleeting, flickered and wisped away. Firm and fitting, is or was the sepulchral mask perched prettily against the crest of skin, as through the eyeholes, she peers, wondering and watchful. They become, inexorably, a pall of funereal quiet drawing them into a suffocating, gradual embrace. Accident or design, purpose or chance? Too late; the artfully frayed threads have snapped, suprising even their shocked selves. The moment has flown. Fingers, she can scarcely believe they are hers, reach to remove the grave-mask, only to trace contours of beige silk. Around, she looks, the strange turning, yet stranger still. Wearing impassively bereft visages, the flesh and blood stone angels, she knows and does not know, carry on their clockwork routine. Her plastic harlequin-smiles are traded away, for at last, a face again.