Stretching across half the river valley is a churning wall of fog as high as the eye can see. It approaches with the speed of a summer windstorm.
I took this picture while standing alone on the riverbank, grass whipping my legs with the force of the oncoming gale. Chiala and MolanDif had fled downstream in the dinghy. Chiala was still half in trance as I helped them push off, MolanDif chanting, “You are Chiala, you are Chiala,” with each awkward stroke of his paddle.
They could not travel as fast as the cloud.
I stood between them and the ghosts like a brave man, wrapping myself in an armor of unconvincing hopes. I hoped the mist would not pursue my companions until it had dealt with me; I hoped I could escape it as I escaped before; even if it consumed me, I hoped I could resist long enough for the others to get away.
And I hoped if they did get away, Chiala would realize that I did take a risk, when it was too late for anything else.
I set my camera down carefully and picked up my mask. If I was to be bait, I had to make myself tempting. I donned ToPu’s face and opened myself to him.
Picture 13—My face in terror:
ToPu arrived immediately. He inhabited my body but my consciousness remained awake, watching everything. Perhaps it was ToPu’s choice to keep me with him; perhaps our previous confrontation with the fog had realigned our spirits somehow, allowing us to coexist in the same body. I don’t know. I only know we stood together as the fog descended upon us.
Through ToPu’s spirit eyes, I saw past the physical aspect of the fog and into another plane—a plane of ghosts where a great agglomerate creature rippled and shimmered around us. Heads erupted from its writhing mass and were dragged screaming back inside; pseudopods and arms snaked out of control, scrabbling at the ground, never gaining purchase. From deep within the creature came a ceaseless frenzy of moaning, surging in pulses like ocean waves.
ToPu picked up the camera and began shooting picture after picture of the swallowed souls. Tears ran down his face. It was all he could do for them—watch and let them know he watched.
The fog seethed; the thing that was the fog convulsed around us. Something grabbed ToPu’s arm, then his leg, then wrapped around his head. With one great heave, he was ripped away from me, as if my own body were torn in two. The fog clutched both of us in its grip, and for a single moment in our lives, ToPu and I saw each other face-to-face. He was not just a mask now but a complete spirit, a wrinkled man in shabby clothes, held spread-eagled before me. Our eyes met; and in his face I saw what he had never known, that he was wise despite all his fear and doubt. Then, with agonizing effort, he yanked himself free of the fog, arms and pseudopods sliding away from him. He raised the camera and clicked this picture of me.
In that instant, my vision of the ghost-world collapsed like a bubble popping, and my eyes returned to the physical plane.
The fog surrounded me, a rolling night fog that blotted all sight. It seemed too thick to let me breathe. Panic took me and I ran blindly, tripping on uneven ground, picking myself up and running on. Brambles tore at my uniform; my shoulder struck an unseen tree, and I spun away, pain scissoring down my arm. Suddenly there was nothing under my feet and I was tumbling downward, striking the river with a splash that sent warm water stinging up my nose. I swam a few weak strokes, bumped against a rock, and clung to it, panting. Water flowed gurgling around me, while overhead the ghost fog roared.
Picture 14—ToPu:
It took me three days to find my camera in the mist. It was scratched but undamaged. Nearby I found the remains of ToPu.
The picture shows the mask lodged on a bramble bush. Branches of bramble protrude through the eyeholes and the mouth. The papier-mâché of the face has been dented and ripped in numerous places. The garnet and its setting are gone.
Scattered on the ground around ToPu’s bush are the other masks—the rest of the full Arcana, Lilijel and MolanDif’s mask among them. Their eyeholes all stare at ToPu, like an audience gathered to hear a speaker. Their gems are missing, but the masks are otherwise undamaged.
They must have been carried here by the fog cloud, then released. I like to believe the mask-spirits and their human hosts were released too. Perhaps they proved incompatible with the Mutan ghosts and could not truly meld with the whole; but I prefer to think ToPu saved them. Within the cloud, he located each familiar soul, watched it, took its picture, freed it by making it real.
That is what I tell myself. That is my mythology.
The gems are gone, and the mask-spirits departed. Lilijel will not dance on this physical plane again.
I dream that Chiala and MolanDif survived. Though I searched the length of the river, I did not find their bodies or the dinghy. The fog stayed thick about me, angry that my soul was closed to it forever; but despite the fog, I think I would have found Chiala’s body if it were there.
Picture 15—The sundiaclass="underline"
I took this picture earlier today. I won’t tag it for preservation like the others. It’s better to go to the park and see the sundial for myself. I’m a man who should remind himself of the realness of things.
I came back to this city because the huts are here and all our supplies. The fog followed me back…or perhaps it never left. I think it will stay with me wherever I go.
The task force has surely left orbit by now and headed for a new planet. The universe is too rich in worlds for them to trouble with Muta. No colony would ever be safe here, unless they abandoned their masks and the dance. That is a price they will not pay.
The ghost fog swirls around me but its attempts to consume me are futile. My link to the spirit world is gone. If I want to commune with ghosts, all I can do is talk.
Are you listening to me, fog?
I’ve hated you a long time, hated you for the murders and my banishment here. But the loss that hurt me most was none of your doing. And the souls trapped inside you…I can’t help thinking of them as people like me, though I know Mutans are alien, non-human. Maybe to them, being part of this undifferentiated mass is heaven; but I can’t help thinking it’s hell.
I’ve decided to do something, fog. I’ve failed to take action so often in my life, there aren’t many options left for me. But I can still watch. I can still try to see, really see, the souls you’ve swallowed. They may nearly have forgotten the people they once were, but I think they can remember. If they try. If I try.
I’m watching. I know it’s not much, but it’s something. I’m watching.
Picture 16—Fog.
Picture 17—Fog.
Picture 18—Fog.
“Shadow Album”: In the 1980s, I did a lot of theater: writing, acting, directing, and improvising (which is writing, acting, and directing combined). Somehow in the middle of that, I got involved in a mask workshop—possibly because said workshop was taught by my wife, Linda Carson.
Masks are powerful things, which is why they feature prominently in shamanistic religious traditions. Donning a mask is often the first step to donning an alternate personality. Masks are therefore used in some types of theater training to help students learn to set aside their mundane selves and become something Other.
If this sounds hokey when you read it on the page, let me assure you it’s very effective in practice. Masks can have a powerful psychological effect…if you let them. In some sense, you can “become” the mask: someone you’d never let yourself be otherwise. There are obvious risks in this process, which is why mask workshops should always be led by people who know what they’re doing; but taking risks is one of the great exhilarations of acting, and when it works, you can be transformed.