Broken Masks

Sometimes I think that I am not one person.If I was, I would not be fighting with myself. Fighting for what I am and what I wish to be. There are voices that speak in my mind, they can be no-one else, and so they are me. I sense their will, I feel their weakness, sometimes I can tell when I recede into the background and they take over.

First is the Mask. He has no voice. It is merely a face for others to see, for those who would rather not see the real me. Its existence is thin, pathetic. It is fashioned, chained and tempered by laws that have no meaning other than to bind. This cold shell stops people from looking into my heart from behind their own masks. My Mask is broken though, and soon it will fall and shatter into pieces. What will happen then? I wonder.

The naïve Squire, he is an accumulation of everything that has been fed into me by a system trying to make an ideal human. He wishes to trust and see the inherent good in all people, see things in black and white instead of dwelling within the grey areas- but he is slow to react to a situation he is not accustomed to. He believes in chivalry, in justice, in truth. Every day his voice battles to be heard from underneath the Mask. With each injustice meted out to me his voice weakens. He is unwanted in a world bereft of compassion, but somehow he continues to persist.

The Avenger smiles when subject to cruelty. He desires vengeance, not justice. Compassion is not an issue for him. He manifests himself in me in the form of my everyday cynicism and pessimism- but there is a dormant darker side to him which collects pain and wishes to inflict it onto others. I wish to ease his hate, but to imbibe his unyielding spirit, focus his fierce passion.

The Dreamer knows what I want. He is a part of me that remains untainted by anything that happens around him, simply because he ignores it. His only desire is pure freedom, and he floats away from anything that would try to control him, be it life, death, ‘society’ or the very planet that tries to hold him to the ground. He is my imagination let wild, a fountain of incredible creativity and energy- but fickle and temperamental. He is unwilling, even, to slow down enough to allow me to put these thoughts into words before he jumps towards whatever catches his fancy next. He is an able entertainer, treating me to dreams of surprising complexity and depth and making my desires clear to me even as I try to look away from them. Hidden in his childlike ways, there seems to be a deeper understanding of life, however, every time I try to catch him to question him- he disappears.

The Addict, he was the obedient child once- the diligent worker. He has let himself be misled by what surrounds him. He believes that he cannot resist his addiction and so he’s given up before even trying. What remains is a hollow, deteriorated being that only searches for moments of cheap satisfaction in the face of true happiness. His curiosity has faded into the background, his stagnantion stems from self doubt.

The Survivor knows only the fear of death. His thoughts are out of the scope of good and evil, they are there only to ensure a continued existence. Unwittingly he taunts me by asking me to choose between protecting myself or those who are dear to me. The answer is simple for him- for he cares about nothing. But although he may be a part of me, I am not him. The answer is simple for me too, but implementing my decision will not be as comfortable as his.

In scattered moments of weakness I have felt within myself a cold, uncaring, depravity.
Evil.
I do not feel its line of thought working in my head, if I didn’t remember the fierce reaction it evoked in me in the past I wouldn’t think that it existed.
I do not know what it wishes, it has no emotion. Perhaps this is merely my mind’s attempt to understand evil. It is not like the others, it is not part of what I am. I hate it.
I want to find this thought and kill it. But even with this resolution, I cannot help but wonder- If I was really a ‘good’ person, I wouldn’t have to be scared of it.

And who am I then? - The one who speaks to himself in his head as he writes this.Am I one of the personas? Am I all of them? Or am I a separate creature altogether, the Thinker, who listens to these murmurings and tries to find meaning behind it all.