Jester’s Masquerade

1

A magician performed tricks in the streets of Victorian England, failing to garner any attention. He had been working all day, painstakingly practising his craft, and yet it appeared as though his work had gone entirely unnoticed by the public. The magician hadn’t acquired enough attention to perform tricks at the local theatre, nor the proper funding, and as it stood barely received enough tips to make ends meet. For a while he felt as though he were an arrow midair, flying aimlessly through the passage of time, events and people moving past him in a blur. He felt a certain nausea from the turbulence caused by his directionless existence, and felt resentful towards the universe; he was in perpetual state of waiting, lying awake for the day where he would reach his target, or if not, finally crash down into the earth.

The day had passed by rather quickly. Its events simply gelled into a blur, a gloopy mass of blurry faces and intermingled murmurs. All the other performers and artists who were set up in the same lane had long dissipated by now. He looked down at the empty hat flipped upside down on the cobblestone pavement and found two pounds for his hard day's work, about his average amount.

Winter had come and it was already growing dark by the time he decided to pack up his equipment and head home. The grey sky was littered with black clouds peeking out from the roof of the ramshackle apartment buildings that were seemingly older than the ground on which they were built upon. As he stared at these clouds a strange sense of dread began to loom over him. He didn’t know the source of his anguish, and didn’t dwell upon it, seeing as how thinking about the source of his pain would simply cause more anguish, forcing him to stumble about in that vicious, never ending cycle of worry, and so he closed the lid of his briefcase, marking the end of another work day.

As he was headed down the lane and towards his home he encountered a young boy who could’ve been no older than ten years old. The boy sat outside on the steps of a confectionery shop, his curly blonde hair illuminated by the warm light emanating from the shop's display case. As the magician passed by he couldn’t help but notice the boy staring at him through his peripheral vision. He had no plans on paying him any mind, and was taken aback when he started to speak.

“Aren’t you that magician from further down in the lane?”

The magician stopped in his tracks and peered into the boy's eyes. They were icy blue.

“Yes I am. And what are you doing here outside this confectionery shop all alone?” he said, rather taken aback. He was not used to strangers recognizing him for his work.

“I see you performing close by every day, sir. I’m waiting for my papa. He’s inside the shop getting candy for me and my sister. And where are you headed?”

“Ah, just heading home. It gets awfully cold out here, especially during the night time. Say, what’s that in your hand?”

The boy looked down at the candy he held in his hand, as if he himself had forgotten what he bought. “A sour lolly,” he said, “and what’s that peering out of your jacket pocket?”

“A rose,” the magician said, pulling it out of his pocket and placing it in his sleeve. “Would you like to see a trick?”

“That would be wonderful, sir.” the boy replied.

The magician placed the rose in his hand and held it close to the boy’s face. Digging into his jacket pocket he retrieved a box of matches, and lit one ablaze. He carefully set the flame to the head of the rose, its petals very quickly morphing into something ugly and decaying, and, with one swipe of the hand, hid it from the boy’s sight. The boy was transfixed by this performance; the warm glow of the blazing flower set fire to his eyes and melted away at their icy hue. Then, as quickly as he had obscured it from view, the magician raised his hand, and, instead of being met with the dreary picture of a mangled, charred flower, found an entirely new, white rose. Such as the flower changed, there occurred within the boy a metamorphosis of similar nature; his soul was lit ablaze with the fires of childlike wonder, and a new, mysterious door which he had never known before suddenly opened. The boy had discovered unadulterated magic.

Just as he finished the trick the boy’s father walked out of the store, in one hand his shopping bag and the other, his daughter. He threw a tender glance at his son and ignored his new friend. Briefly letting go of his daughter’s hand, he grabbed his son by the forearm and escorted him further down the lane, similar to how a shepherd escorts his sheep.

“I’ll tip you for the trick tomorrow, I promise.” the boy managed to whisper into the magician’s ear, before being dragged out of his reach.

As they were walking away the father looked over his shoulder and stole a contemptuous glance at the magician. His stare was so full of anger, so full of sheer, unfiltered malice, that the magician wondered if he had known him his whole life, and if so, what he could’ve possibly done to anger him in such a way. Thinking about it sent chills throughout his entire body.

The magician reached the end of the lane and took a left, turning on the street where his apartment resided. He began to feel ill, a sense of claustrophobia was beginning to entrap his entire being. He felt as though the closely wedged buildings and complexes on either side of the lane were looming over him, their glowing yellow windows staring him down like the eyes of a night owl. By now the sky was completely enveloped by black clouds, the only sources of light being the pale fluorescent moon, the street lamps and aforementioned glowing windows. Finally, he reached the front entrance of his apartment, but was appalled to see an unwelcome guest.

Dressed in a black robe, standing at no more than five feet, stood a jester, juggling foam balls above its head. It wore a porcelain mask which obscured its entire face, as even its eyes were covered up by a veil of fabric. The mask was jarring not in its complex or intriguing design but rather its overwhelming simplicity. It was a plain white masquerade, with each cheek being painted in a rose hue, and a long, mischievous looking grin stretching out from each side. The jester looked straight at the man and did not even attempt to budge or move out the way, but instead continued juggling as if nobody were waiting for them to leave and nobody would be. The magician noted that right next to the feet of the jester laid a glass jar overflowing with cash, a rare sight in his city. The magician cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, sir, but this is my apartment, and you’re in the way. Could you step aside for me?”

The jester didn’t do so much as flinch, but instead, kept juggling.

“Sir, there’s nobody left on the streets. You’re performing for nobody.”

And still, there was nothing. By now the magician's irritation had reached its peak. He attempted to squeeze through the gap between the jester and the door frame, yet the jester simply stepped in front of the magician once again, blocking his way. Finally, losing all patience, he grabbed the jester by their arm, and, rather effortlessly, flung them to the ground. The jester, throughout all this, didn’t make so much as a sound, not even a grunt of pain upon being flung so violently. The jester scrambled to recover their balls, and then swiftly returned onto their feet. There was a deafening silence between the two for a while, as the magician dared not to say anything that would escalate the situation further. Once he had calmed down, he opened the door, and, with hesitation, took one final glance at the jester. He could see nothing through that mask, he could see no glance in return, but rather a pitch black void where a glimmer of life should've been.

2

The magician awoke in his garret, plagued by a blistering headache. It was already the next morning, and he had struggled to get a wink of sleep due to the events of yesterday. He was still in a daze and couldn't recall all the specifics of what had transpired, only certain images and feelings, that glass jar being one of them.

Sunlight poured in jets through the blinds of his window and the bustling of townsfolk could be heard even from his room. He sat up on the edge of his bed and sandwiched his head between his palms, staring at the scattered bed sheets which were sprawled across the floor. From these sheets emerged his cat, who must have decided to make that his dwelling for the night. Sometimes he used him for tricks, but not today.

Parallel to his complex lay a river, and over this river stood a bridge, and across this bridge stood a separate section of the city, and in this city stood a clock tower, striking twelve. Usually he would be out and about early in the day, but today he slept in. He fumbled about his room and got dressed for another day of work, and was disgusted by the sight that met him in the mirror. Despite his hair still being messy and tangled, his eyes dry and his mouth sour, he figured he had no time to pretty himself up, and made his way out of the garret and down the stairs.

The sunlight was blinding, and as he covered his eyes he felt as though he were out of place, like an outsider in his own city. Like a bear out of hibernation, he lumbered about, turning right towards the street where he performed the previous night. A sense of uneasiness washed over him as he laid his tattered hat on the ground and opened his briefcase: he had the feeling he was being watched. Slowly looking around, he was met with a horrible sight. On each side of the lane, scattered about like coins in a well, stood jesters, nearly of the exact same appearance as the one he had seen last night. Where fellow magicians, merchants, and various performance artists previously were, now stood these fools. A part of him had wished that the events of the previous night were just a delusion, perhaps the product of paranoia or uneasiness, but there the clowns stood, in the midst of their performances. Not only that, but they were also being flooded with a crowd of onlookers.

Joining the crowd, the magician drew closer to take a better look at the artists. Through the onslaught of people stood three jesters, all generally the same in appearance yet with slight differences in their masks and height. One was juggling foam balls, similar to the jester who he had met the previous night, while the other two gave a performance that was more crude in nature. The magician stared in awe as the jester that stood in the middle of the three pantomimed farts, raising their butt towards the audience. The other was attempting to do back flips, although failing horribly, landing rather absurdly on their back. They seemed to have felt no pain upon doing this, as after each miserable attempt they simply got up and tried to do a backflip again. There was a glass jar laying in front of the trio, and despite it being so early in the day, it was overflowing with tips.

Looking around at the crowd, the magician saw no laughter, no smiles or marks of joy on his peers' faces, but rather a dull, lifeless gaze. It was as though the energy had been drained from their bodies, and what was left was a mere heap of flesh and bone, something cold and distant, an empty husk where a person should’ve been.

Slowly backing from the crowd, the magician was at a loss. At first he tried to carry on with his usual routine, performing his tricks and the like, but he soon realized that it was of no use. Not only were his customers all transfixed by these jesters, but he was now thoroughly unsettled, as he couldn’t execute his tricks without being haunted by the visions of those cursed harlequin masks and their insipid tricks. An hour had hardly passed when he decided to get up and leave. He ran across the avenue, through the torrent of people, nearly toppling over and stumbling about in his rush, and soon reached his apartment, running up the flight of stairs to his garret. For a while he merely paced around his room, he didn’t know what to do. Those harlequin had infested his mind like a plague, and now they wouldn’t leave. All he knew was that at that moment, he desired not to exist. He desired to simply fade away, and so he closed his eyes and slept.

3

He woke up in a sweat to the sound of shuffling footsteps coming from outside his window. He had unintentionally left the window open, yet he was inexplicably warm. Looking out the glass he realized that it was already night time. The shuffling of footsteps and the sounds of rustling fabric were audible even through the veil of the howling wind. He intended on shutting the window, leaving the day behind and locking himself in his garret forever, when he saw them again.

Like stars spangled across the night sky, candles in hand, the jesters hovered across the avenue in a v-pattern formation, flocking together like birds migrating to a far away place. Their black robes clashed against the freshly laid snow like ink blots splattered across blank paper. As always, they said nothing, the avenue still gripped in the palms of deafening silence, the only sound being the fresh snow caving in beneath their feet. They were walking towards the left, further down into the avenue and in the direction of the theatre. What could they have possibly been doing, especially in this hour of the night? There were many, far more than he ever could’ve ever imagined, pouring into his street dozens at a time. Their formation was almost hypnotizing, the magician found himself getting lost in the swaying of candle light, his ears were caressed by the gentle concord of the winter wind and he was slowly put into a lull.

He knew it was ridiculous, but he wanted to get closer. He was suddenly repelled by the idea of running away and isolating himself from the outside world. He wondered if this is what he had been waiting for all this time, an opportunity like this to present itself. This could be the destination he had been looking for, a goal to reach towards; whether or not it was his final stop did not matter to him, for at least in that moment he would be alive. He had been a victim to the ceaseless tides of the universe for too long, he had been drowning in the relentless passage of time, and he now wanted to do something of his own agency, of his own volition. And so he opened the door to his garret and left his apartment building.

Looking down the avenue he saw the jesters walking over the bridge and heading towards the local theatre. This was bizarre due to the fact that the theatre was of course not open during that hour of the night. He trailed at a safe distance behind the crowd of jesters, making a cautious effort not to be spotted. The fools began flooding the theatre one at a time in a very orderly fashion; their formations and movements were efficient and meticulous.

Crossing the bridge the magician looked down at the murky waters below him. The moon shone brilliantly upon the water, its reflection casting a narrow spear of dazzling moonlight upon its surface. He felt like a man waiting for sentencing. He wondered how many people had previously thrown themselves into the water, all those who went to sleep beneath it. No, he had never been suicidal, nor was he at that moment, but he was thinking about these people: their lives, memories and stories. What scared him wasn’t his death, but the final thoughts he’d have leading up to its arrival. He wondered what those lost souls had thought before they were consumed by the tides of the canal, their last thought before the sound of their body hitting the water, before their mind became as deafeningly silent as the night around them. Now standing at the foot of the bridge, he found himself too nervous to take the leap across.

He stood on the bridge, in silence, waiting for every last clown, harlequin and jester to enter the building. Once they had all vanished from sight, he worked up the courage to cross the bridge, taking a right and pushing open the theatre doors. The lobby was entirely vacant, with no workers anywhere to be found, the room only being occupied by a front desk and random pieces of assorted furniture: a tattered up leather sofa, coffee table, and wooden stool set up in the corner of the room. The magician took a deep breath, entered the main hall and stepped into the theatre center.

He looked around at the gallery, nervous. Standing by the entrance he saw the whole scope of the theatre. In it stood rows upon rows of oak benches, occupied by what must’ve been hundreds of jesters, all staring at the drawn stage curtains: the performance had yet to start. A lone, candle lit chandelier hung over the mass of porcelain masks and their doll-like expressions. Red silk robes hung from the ceiling in a u-pattern and spanned from one side of the room to the other. Up in the gallery sat even more of the jesters, all staring off into the distance, making no movement or noise, inanimate as a disregarded toy. Then, suddenly, like a wind up doll being cranked by an eager child, every single jester sitting in the theatre - one thousand, at the very least - all turned their heads towards the magician in unison. They stared at him as though he were foreign, something alien. He wanted to hide away. After what only must’ve been a few seconds of staring, the curtains were pulled back, and an empty stage was revealed. As quickly as they had stared at the magician, they looked back at the stage, also in unison, anticipating the beginning of the performance.

On the stage eight jesters entered, each of them holding separate candles. They laid the candles down in a circular formation in the centre of the platform, then immediately vanished behind its wings. There was absolute silence for about a minute. The magician dared not to even breathe too loudly as he stared at that vacant, distant stage illuminated by candle light which now seemed to him hundreds of miles away, like a far off glowing cabin in the midst of expansive forestry. Then, it began slowly. The eight jesters from earlier - or rather a different set of jesters, it was hard to tell - emerged from the shadows of the stage’s wings carrying the limp bodies of eight civilians. The civilians were already adorned with black robes, and did not move an inch as they were being carried towards the burning of candle light. A jester then rearranged the candles so that they formed a single, horizontal line, spanning across the entire stage, and placed a body parallel to each one. Even from this distance, the magician swore that among these bodies was the father of the boy he had met the previous day.

The tallest jester among the eight - who, from the looks of it, was their ringleader - reached their gloved hand into the inside of their robe and pulled out a mask. It was of the same porcelain as all the other masks, pale and lifeless. They began to hover towards the body furthest to the left, and stood at his head. Each of the seven other jesters, similarly all holding a mask, began to walk towards their respective bodies. Slowly, the first jester lowered the mask towards the man’s face, as gentle as a stray feather fluttering towards the ground, with the rest following suit. This is when the metamorphosis began.

At first, they were silent. Then, a body could be seen jolting, jittering as though a shock of electricity had been sent straight through it. Then another, then another. Their limbs began to snap and bend in unusual places, backs arching, stomachs rising towards the ceiling, animated as though they were marionettes, puppets dancing to the amusement of a demented higher power. Their convulsions became more violent as they reached the crescendo of their sickening evolution.

The stage, which had been silent this whole time, broke out into the most ghastly screams that one could ever imagine. Although they were only eight, their cries of lamentation resonated throughout the entire theatre; they screamed as though they would never scream again, as though it were the culmination of all their life’s remaining energy, as though all the sufferings of humanity were placed upon their decrepit bodies. They screeched in unison, all singing the eulogy to their own existence. The magician attempted to open the doors, yet they were locked. He collapsed to the ground and began to cover his ears, a row of jesters once again staring into his eyes, looking as indifferent as the universe which had tormented him.

As quickly as the outbreak of noise began, it stopped. Their screams cut off rather unnaturally, almost like that of a child whose mouth has been covered up by an angry parent. Then, as though nothing had happened, each of the bodies on stage stood up and took a bow, their masks now vibrant with colour: a rose hue had been brought to their cheeks and lips. The way they carried on so merrily was almost laughable.

The magician laid near the entrance there still. He thought he would feel some sort of tangible emotion, yet he felt nothing. The two jesters to his left and right, also the ones closest to the entrance of the theatre, got up and walked towards him. The entire crowd was watching, but was ever silent. The magician let himself be taken into their grasp and walked down the aisle towards the stage, each jester grabbing him by an arm. As he approached the stage, he felt weak and inadequate.

He was laid upon the platform by his two handlers and was surrounded by candlelight. The mask was hung over his face and obscured the light from the chandelier like the moon covering the sun. In his final moments he felt a strange affinity towards the mask. He would become a drop in the ocean, a gear in a machine, a coin in a well.

He realised what scared him wasn’t the possibility of his own erasure, but the utter indifference he felt towards it. A blizzard raged outside, covering his tracks in fresh snow. And as soon as the curtains were drawn, he faded into oblivion.

4

A jester performed tricks near a confectionary shop. He juggled, mimed, and played the fool to the entertainment of the townsfolk, their swarming entourage surrounding him like a hivemind, a sea of fleeting glances and mindless indulgence. A blonde, curly haired child went up to the jester, two pounds in hand. The child stood on tiptoe and clawed at the jester’s mask with his pudgy, eager fingers, and succeeded in pulling it off his face. The jester let him do this without struggle. The thought of running off suddenly crossed the jester’s mind, the thought of crawling away and to never be seen, akin to how a cockroach scurries off into the shadows upon being exposed to sunlight.

“His face! His face is blank!” the child shrieked, dropping the porcelain mask in a visceral state of horror, shattering it to pieces.

The jester put his hands to his face, and with his knees buckling, collapsed to the ground. He felt for any identifying features, but could only find barren flesh. Try as he might, he could no longer weep.