Masquerade

By Milton Davis

In the city of Barakoa, the mask is everything. It signifies your rank, your personality, your past, present and future. Jeremy Pepperdine waited for all these things to be bestowed upon him on his sixteenth birthday. But after a tragic event Jeremy finds himself, abandoned, alone....and maskless. How does a person survive in a world where the most important item of the society is denied to him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: MVmedia, LLC
• Release date: Dec 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393090328

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Copyright © 2015 by Milton J Davis.

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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

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Maquerade/Milton J. Davis.—1st ed.

The Pepperdine mansion pulsed with the sights and sounds of celebration. Women and men danced in the main room to the vibrant banjo and lap drum music bouncing throughout the house. Upstairs the children tried their best to imitate their parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles with varying degrees of success. It was a joyous day for all, except for the object of the celebration; Jeremy Pepperdine.

Jeremy gazed down on the adults prancing about in their wonderful masks. This was his sixteenth birthday, the day that he would be pronounced a man by Grand Elder Thomas Long. In a few hours, he would sit before everyone in this house to have his palms deciphered by the Elder's Wife, Seer Luanne. She would pronounce his future and his first mask would be given to him. From that day forth, his true face would never be seen again by anyone outside his home. His formal introduction to society would be complete. Jeremy the unmasked boy, would become Jeremy, the masked man.

The mask makes the man, his father always said. He watched father as he twirled mother about, their gloved hands gripped together, their marriage masks complementing each other. There was a mask for every milestone in one's life; initiation, graduation, marriage, work status, and death. And as father said, the mask made the man, or woman. Jeremy was lucky that his father and mother were a couple of means and could provide for him the best masks Mercintina had to offer. Real diamonds traced the eyes of mother’s mask, with gold flakes forming the scales above her checks. Father’s mask was less elaborate, but the emerald eyebrows said more than enough. Others were not so fortunate. Their masks shimmered with costume jewelry, symbols of a status they had yet to attain.

The band ended the dancing with a rousing crescendo. The dancers clapped and cheered, both men and women reaching for their fans. His father looked directly at him as if he knew he was there all the time, then waved him down.

Come, come, birthday boy, he shouted over the crowd. Or should I say, birthday man!

Everyone laughed, even the other children. The crowd made way for Elder Long