The Man With Two Faces - Blog Posts

They were grand things, made of strange substances I’d never seen before. A small toy, stuffed with plant fibers, of an animal I’d never heard of before. A pinwheel, but made of some tough but flexible fabric we had never encountered - he called it plastic.

As the years passed, his gifts got more elaborate. A metal box with scribblings in a language we’d never heard spoken aloud, with small buttons that moved characters on the side of the box when they were pressed. A “radio” that played a most pleasing crackling sound when the lever on the side was turned.

There was a mask on the back of his head where the rest of us had hair, attached so cleverly that we could never figure out how it was secured. No matter how carefully I looked I could never see where the edge of his face ended and where the mask began. His ears were oddly shaped as well, curved both forward and back, as if they had been twinned and then joined at the center to make a cone.

I came to realize that he never stepped backwards, always stepping sideways and then turning carefully in place. It seemed an odd sort of thing to be so special about, but he was full of odd quirks like that. I would speak to my parents about it during the day when he wasn’t around, but they had no more answers about it than I did. We all loved his company and his odd gifts, but we never really understood him or them.

Untill one day, not that long ago, when he stayed longer than he ever had before. Always before he had been careful to leave well before sunrise. But this particular night he had stayed, caught up in conversation with my parents and I about the state of the world and the war that was brewing between Avalon and the Odinhall.

And so it was that we all looked up to find the sun beginning to rise over the horizon and he was still here. Our guest was shocked and horrified, gathering his things with quick, abrupt movements as he babbled apologies. He hurried out the door, bag slung over his shoulder, just as the Morning Wind rose up to begin the day.

It hit him directly in the face, as strong and purposeful as it is every morning. As it must be, to throw back the curtain of night. It hits him, and he staggers backwards. His right foot comes up, the Morning Wind pushes him, and his foot comes back down behind him.

And this is when I realized that the mask is no such thing, but rather another face. One that has never animated in our presence before. One that, rather than being full of good will and bon ami, is full of spite an malice. This second face smiles at me where I stand in the doorway to our house, and the small stuffed animal he’d given me years ago comes alive on the windowsill, a full-sized roar emitting from it’s tiny mouth. The radio sputters to life, and it speaks horrible things of blood and death in a voice of rattling bones. He smiles, and his teeth are points.

The wind blows at his back, he steps towards me, and I slam the door in his face. He knocks gently on the door. My parents and I share terrified looks.

The doorknob turns.

Text:  My parents knew a man with two faces. He visited late at night, and brought me small presents from a far away land.