Other Title? I need to rip gems out of here and get rid of the rest.

It is too small. It is highlighted in places you would not expect, as if the light is falling from too many sources and the mask cannot decide which to obey, so it becomes a haphazard, jumbled confusion. The darkness cuts out of the slight fades in color, from the green eyes to a feral orange around the cheekbones and a light, pointed nose.

The front is smooth, until I run my finger around the eyes. The highlights are raised just slightly, just enough to be felt with the most sensitive fingertip. It rests snugly on my nose, flaring just a bit too much upwards at the tip. The rivets are cold.

This is my mother’s. She remembers the coldest night in Venice better than any other cold night, because she did not know who they were. They swirled around her in mysterious garb, with a candle in each hand.

*A sunrise over rugged mountains, but not tall. Hills, more like. Twin trees stand lonesome at the peak, each grasping at the sunlight greedily, taking from the ground behind it, parched and dry. It is a feral place, with tigers hidden in shadows of blades of grass.

I am in Venice. It is a cold night, the coldest so far. Around me whirl not-people with eyes sunken behind wild carelessness and a candle in each hand. My skin tingles. I cannot move. It is so cold. A candle in each hand. I cannot move. The darkness cuts with highlights that cannot decide where they should lie. It swirls and whips and slices through the confusion.

He no longer wants a hiding place with his grandiose movements and taut muscles. He lives in the wrong place, in the wrong thing. It whispers to him at night, telling him to hide and to live in it. He’s leaving now.

*Put it on. Breath. Light the candle in your left hand, and light the candle in your right. Turn. Turn. Swirl in the mist. Swirl, and watch the mist suck your legs down into a blur and the shadows slither confusedly. Tell them your bidding, and watch them slither away. Shrug to call them back and carry them in your shoulders. Tell them your bidding, and watch them obey. It is not a curse, but it is no blessing.

It would go to Venice on the coldest day of the year, when snow filters through the lamplight to settle in canals and on the shoulders of gondoliers.

I see through its eyes the shadows wrap around his legs. They slither upwards and stop him in his tracks. They move tighter and tighter, and his bones creak. He does not cry out, though. He keeps his mouth shut, but they crawl in through his nostrils and his tear ducts and squeeze his mind. He falls to his knees and they squeeze, squeeze, crush, break. It laughs as the shadows retreat.

I know you’re in there. Hold off the shadows. Carry those candles in each hand and push the shadows from yourself. Hold the candles close and turn, turn. Whirl. Be the dervish of light, the whirlwind from which God speaks.

It is the dark part inside my mind, the animal brain that no one likes to admit they have. The reptilian id that takes and is afraid of fire. It hides in the center, the dead center, and whispers to the shadows and says, “Come on. Listen to me. Take. Take. Take.”