Iron masks - Marie Kossaifi - Translated by Linda Eid

Marie Kossaifi

سقوط الأقنعة الحديديّة

Translated by Linda Eid

A Mask drops every day from a face, so you think that face will finally look the way it really is, but the truth is deeper than to be reached with the naked eye, because every mask hides another mask in a silly and slow and endless game. Every day, we discover that the naked face is more embarrassing than the naked body, because it holds the truth of the creature that exists behind that interface, decorated differently with every occasion, and with a different gown with each season.

However, when the iron mask drops it is hard for a persono not to hear the sounds of it banging and claning on the floor, or not to see the face hiding behind and how much it has taken from the rigidity of the iron that stuck against it for a lifetime. When other masks fall it is another case; some fly like feathers and cotton, and some are torn apart like old paper, and others are folded and wrapped. But the Mask of Iron is different, it does not fall on its own, but requires special equipment and methods of treatment which are not required for others, and requires time and patience and expertise, but the sound of it falling and rolling on the ground it worth all the time needed to lift its rusted joints from what the days have left on it.

The Iron mask is both thick and heavy and it disturbs its holder, but it remains a lighter weight for him to keep rather than looking in a mirror that reflects the true image of his face. And the longer he hides behind it the more he hates it, and the more he hates it the bigger is his desire to take cover by it, and days pass and he is spinning in this vicious circle empty from everything but his empty days.

Are we at the stage of the fall of the iron mask? Perhaps the era of globalization and speedy spread of information through the media helped to break down some of the sculptures and removed masks off the faces of many, but the nature of human is intertwined with fear and it refuses to take off what it thinks is its fence and defense, with fear of becoming vulnerable. And as soon as one mask falls another one is made up, and we may spend all our lives with people who we would not know for what they truly are even if we thought the opposite. This is why it seems those people who are "real/authentic" are very rare.

"Fakes" are the ones who put their masks hiding their truths, even if they were good (and that is the extreme malice and hypocrisy). While "real" people show themselves in the light of day as they are: mean-spirited or selfish or arrogant or cynical, or perhaps the opposite, but they do not fool us nor "weaken themselves" while they are strong, they pretend courage while they are afraid, do not play the romantics while their hearts are ponds full of dirt and filth. You trust them, and you feel you know how to deal with their good deeds and bad deeds, but the "Fakes" they are the others who sting you when you do not expect.

There is something repugnant in the “fakes”, that makes me feel that they come from other planets, gray and dead, or as if they were sticky creatures with unpleasant appearance, or as if they were heavy creatures disfiguring earth and ruining the beauty of its nature, or as if there is a big gap between their inside and their outside. The "fakes" resemble each other in a monotonous and boring way, they do not have passion nor recklessness nor romanticism. They wear the same iron masks, made in the same mold, painted with the same color, and they move according to the same rhythm, and they don’t surprise us. Oh my God, how ugly “fakes” are and how many they are! However,sometimes, in moments of fatigue from my existence, I wish that those iron masks would stay on the faces of their holders, for they, despite their ugliness and coldness and the absence of most of their features, they remain a thousand and thousand times, more beautiful than what you discover behind them.