Chapter Three – The Mask of Righteousness
The square was full that evening. Oil lamps swung on hooks, throwing their orange shimmer across gathered faces. A man stood elevated at the center, reading aloud words of scripture, his voice rounded with authority. His neighbors nodded, some whispering amen. Coins clinked into a poor beggar's bowl at his gesture.
To them, he was a pillar—upright, moral, almost saintly.
But to me, he was a man stitched together by masks.
Through his aura I saw the fissures: grief leaking like smoke from a wound never cleansed. A woman's face, blurred and luminous, pressed at the edges of his soul. I understood. He had lost someone—someone whose absence hollowed him, then hardened him. Where there should have been mourning, there was pride. Where there should have been healing, there was hunger.
He gave coin, but only when eyes were upon him.
He spoke verses, but not when silence could have tested his truth.
He wore goodness, but as a garment against his own despair.
I did not despise him.
I pitied him.
I waited until the crowd thinned, until the man's posture sagged from the performance, leaving him a little smaller, a little more human. Then I stepped closer, silent as breath.
"Your words carry well," I said.
He looked at me sharply, then smiled with practiced ease. "Truth carries itself. I am only a servant."
"Are you?" I tilted my head, studying his hands—steady, but tense. "Tell me… who serves you when no one is watching?"
He frowned, confused, perhaps offended, but I pressed gently, not with accusation but with curiosity—as though I truly wished to know him.
"You said you are a servant," I said tilting my head. "Tell me—who serves you when silence is your only audience?"
His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean," I said softly, "when there are no ears to applaud, no eyes to admire, and no hands to praise—what truth carries you then? What remains of the servant?"
He bristled, his smile thinning. "I remain. My righteousness does not falter with the absence of others. It is not a mask to be worn and shed."
I let the word mask hang between us. He winced, though I had not accused him of anything. "You speak as if you know me," he said coldly.
"I hope to," I replied. "Do you know yourself?"
The silence that followed was heavier than the crowd's applause had been. He looked away first, clearing his throat. "I have walked through grief," he said. "I have lost more than you could fathom. And yet here I stand—upright, unswayed."
"Unswerved, perhaps," I murmured, "but are you unscarred?"
The question startled him. His lips trembled before the mask returned. "We all bear scars. The righteous endure them."
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. "Or deny them. And in denial, the wound festers."
His hand twitched, the first true crack in his composure. He wanted to argue, but pride held his tongue. Pride always holds the tongue.
I left him with his silence, not forcing an answer. There is no need to strip a man's mask before he is ready. The mask rots on its own.
He walked home under the stars, his back stiff, his pace sharp. I followed, unseen. His house was modest, neat, the kind a man of virtue might keep. From the outside, it looked orderly. Within, it was a different world.
She was waiting—his woman. Not the one he lost, but the one he had chosen to replace her absence. A poor substitute, though she bore the same shade of hair, the same slight frame. She greeted him with quiet eagerness, but he brushed past without so much as a glance.
"Your meal is warm," she said gently.
"It is late," he snapped. "Do not let it happen again."
Her eyes lowered. She nodded.
I saw then what others could not: her aura dim, strained, battered not by fists but by words that cut deeper. His grief had not broken him—it had twisted him, hardened his tongue into a whip. He did not love her. He used her, sculpted her into the shape of a ghost he could not stop chasing.
When she tried to speak, he silenced her with comparisons, cruel reminders. "She would have done better.""She would not have forgotten." The woman flinched but endured, desperate to be seen.
And later, when the lamps dimmed, I watched as his dominance grew sharper, crueler, cloaked in the intimacy that should have been tenderness. He pressed her down not with love but with power, with the bitterness of a man trying to prove he still controlled something, someone. She submitted, not out of desire, but because her spirit had been taught to yield.
I turned my gaze away—not from discomfort, but from sorrow. For even in his most private act, he did not seek connection, only escape. He could not see her. He saw only the shadow of the one he lost, and in that shadow, he sought to bury his pain.
I lingered as the night pressed on. When he finally slept, she curled beside him, silent tears slipping down her face. He did not notice. His dreams were restless, filled with whispers of the woman who was gone.
I stood at the threshold of his chamber, unseen.
"To the world, you shine," I whispered. "To your home, you wither. Yet within you is grief—not gone, only unacknowledged. And grief, if faced, can become compassion. Denied, it becomes cruelty."
I looked at his hand, resting on the blanket. Soon, I would offer mine. And when he took it—if he dared—he would see himself, whole and unhidden.
For now, I let him sleep, ignorant of the reckoning that awaited him.
I returned to him when the streets were empty, when the glow of lanterns had thinned to pale threads and silence stretched like a shroud over the town. He sat alone on the step outside his house, a jug beside him, his face buried in one hand. The mask had slipped; no audience required its weight.
"You drink when the crowd is gone," I said, approaching.
He startled, then scowled. "You again. Do you make a sport of following me?"
"Not sport," I replied, settling opposite him. "Call it concern."
His laugh was harsh. "Concern? You do not know me."
"That is what I asked before—if you knew yourself. Have you answered yet?"
He said nothing, only poured wine into a chipped cup and drank. His aura coiled like smoke, shadows thickening with every swallow.
I leaned forward, speaking softly. "When you spoke to the crowd, you gave them hope, a picture of righteousness to steady their trembling hearts. But who steadies yours?"
His jaw tightened. "No one steadies mine. They abandoned me long ago. When she died—" His voice broke, but he smothered it quickly with another drink. "When she died, the so-called righteous left me to bleed alone. I buried her with my own hands. They said prayers, then turned away. What comfort did their words bring? None."
His hand trembled as he set down the cup. "So I stopped caring. I learned to wear strength, because weakness only invites pity. And pity is worth less than silence."
I let his confession breathe in the night air. "So your righteousness became armor."
"Yes." His eyes flicked toward me, bitter. "And if that is sin, then so be it."
I shook my head. "Not sin. Wound. The mask you wear protects, but it also suffocates. You cannot breathe inside it."
He pressed his lips together. For a moment, I thought he might strike me. But instead, his shoulders sagged. He looked smaller, almost human again.
"You speak like you know grief," he whispered.
"I know what it makes of men," I answered. "Some drown in it. Some let it harden. But all are given the chance to choose what they become after it."
His gaze drifted to his empty hands, as if searching for something to hold. His mask had not broken—but it was cracking.
The night stretched between us, a silence thick with all the words he would not say. His fingers traced the rim of his empty cup as if the hollow could explain his own.
"You speak of armor," I said at last, "but I wonder—when you press your hand to your chest at night, do you feel strength… or only the absence it conceals?"
He flinched, though the question was plain. "I feel resolve," he muttered. "Resolve keeps me standing."
"Resolve," I echoed. "But resolve built on bitterness is no foundation. It collapses, slowly, crushing all beneath it."
His jaw clenched. "You think me cruel."
I did not answer at once. Instead, I let the silence bear weight until he shifted uneasily. Finally, I said, "I think you are grieving. But grief denied always becomes cruelty. Not only to others—but to yourself."
His eyes darted away. "You know nothing."
"I know enough," I said softly. "Enough to see the woman you keep by your side. She is not the one you lost, yet you treat her as if she could be carved into the same shape. Every word you speak to her is laced with the ghost of another. You do not see her—you see absence, and you punish her for not filling it."
His breath caught. The mask shattered for a moment, leaving rawness behind his eyes. "Do not speak of her," he hissed. "You know nothing of what was taken from me."
I leaned closer, unblinking. "Then tell me. Tell me what was taken."
His voice broke before he could stop it. "She was everything. And when she was gone, there was nothing. Nothing but me, and the empty stares of neighbors who pitied me while moving on with their own lives." His hands trembled. "I cannot forgive them for it. I cannot forgive her for leaving me."
Tears slipped down before he could swallow them back. He crushed his fists against his eyes, shaking. "So I built this shell. If I stand righteous, none can see the ruin. If I speak truth loudly enough, perhaps I will believe it myself."
"And do you?" I asked gently.
He lowered his hands, his face streaked. His aura flickered wildly—dark smoke curling, then thinning, pierced by faint streams of light.
"No," he whispered. "No, I do not."
The admission cracked the night open. His bitterness trembled, shaken by grief he could no longer contain. For the first time, the mask lay in pieces at his feet.
I watched him closely, seeing both the shadow and the light warring inside. And I knew—the moment to extend my hand was near.
The silence after his confession was fragile, like glass stretched thin. His tears clung to his lashes, his breath ragged, and for the first time his voice carried no defense. Only ache.
I rose slowly and stepped closer, letting the shadows of the night wrap around us. He stiffened, as though fearing rebuke. But my voice was quiet, steady.
"You have carried this wound so long that you have mistaken it for your heart. But it is not. It is only grief. You can set it down, if you will."
His eyes narrowed. "Set it down? As though I could simply forget her?"
"No." I extended my hand. "Not forget. But choose what her memory becomes within you. A chain—or a flame."
He stared at my hand, suspicion warring with desperation. "What trick is this?"
"No trick," I said. "This is only truth. If you take my hand, you will see yourself as you are, and you must choose. No mask, no audience, no armor. Only choice."
He shook his head, retreating half a step. "And if I do not?"
"Then you remain as you are," I answered simply. "Hollow. Bitter. Righteous only in pretense. It is not I who condemns you—it is you who decides what you will be."
The wind sighed through the empty street. His aura writhed, shadows gnashing against narrow veins of light. His grief howled, but somewhere deep within, a faint spark flickered, like the memory of her laughter refusing to be buried.
With trembling fingers, he reached. Slowly, hesitantly, he placed his palm into mine.
The moment our skin touched, the world shifted.
A surge rippled through him, and his aura erupted into war—smoke and light clashing, grief howling against memory, pride clawing at tenderness. His body convulsed, eyes wide with terror as visions assaulted him: the woman he had lost, smiling, reaching for him with hands soft as dawn; then the woman in his home now, flinching under his sharp words, her spirit shrinking. Both images fought before him, demanding recognition.
He cried out, dropping to his knees, clutching my hand as though it were the only anchor. "I cannot—"
"You can," I said, my voice cutting through the storm. "But you must choose. Do you chain yourself to loss forever? Or do you honor her by becoming more than this hollow shell?"
He wept, choking on the words. "I only wanted her back."
"And in seeking her ghost, you destroyed the living," I told him. "But you can stop. You can love again, not as replacement, but as renewal. Choose it."
The light in his chest flickered wildly, threatening to extinguish, then flared, fragile but stubborn. He pressed my hand harder, as though pouring his soul into the decision.
"I choose…" His voice cracked. "I choose to let her go. To live. To love without chains."
The instant the words left him, his aura burst into brilliance.
The darkness shattered like glass, scattering into the night. From his chest blazed a radiance that consumed the shadows whole, washing the street in golden-white fire. His tears glowed like drops of molten light. He collapsed forward, sobbing, but no longer in bitterness—these were the sobs of release.
I held him until the light steadied, until his aura no longer flickered with war but pulsed with quiet flame. When at last he looked up, his face was streaked with tears, yet softened—like stone long cracked now finally yielding.
"You are free," I said.
He bowed his head, voice breaking. "I had forgotten how it felt."
I withdrew my hand, leaving him kneeling in the glow of his own rebirth.
Behind us, the door of his house creaked. The woman stood in the frame, silent, watching. She did not yet know what had transpired, but she could feel it—the air itself had changed. And she, too, would see him differently now.
I stepped back into the night. My task was done. The choice had been his, and this time, he had chosen light.
Epilogue Reflection
I returned the next day, not to confront but to watch.
The man was not on the steps with his cup. He was inside, his hands busy with work, his voice no longer sharp but steady as he spoke to the woman who had once cowered at his tone. She still kept distance, suspicion etched into her every movement, but the fear had ebbed. Something in her recognized that the air had shifted, that he was no longer a weapon waiting to strike.
The mask was gone. In its place, I saw only weariness—and beneath that, a strange gentleness, unpracticed but genuine. His aura still bore scars, but they no longer bled. Where shadow had once coiled, a quiet flame now pulsed, fragile yet alive.
This is what change looks like—not thunder, not spectacle, but a man reaching for water instead of wine, his words softening where once they cut. Not redemption made perfect, but redemption begun.
I turned away. My burden is not to remain, not to witness the long road ahead. I am only the threshold, the in-between. The door opens, they walk through, and I move on.
Yet as I left, I carried one thought: the righteous mask had shattered, but what remained was far more precious. Not pretense, not armor—simply a man who had chosen to breathe again.