Midnight. Maybe a little past it, I haven’t checked the time. I forget, I forget so very much. Right now, the only thing that refuses to be forgotten is the stinging smell of formaldehyde piercing my nose. Yes, I’m in a morgue, I’m sure of that much. But nearly everything else I know ends there.

A deep cough suddenly shook my head. It must’ve been deliberate; it yanked me straight out of the darkness in my mind and into the center of the room. A morgue, not much different in structure from a prison corridor, and on the stretcher before me lay a body, upper torso exposed. On the far side of it stood a man with crossed arms, raincoat dripping steadily. Unfortunately, his gaze was locked onto me, but I couldn’t pull mine away from the body on the stretcher. Then again, my thoughts weren’t really in the morgue. But one has to start somewhere, right?

“I don’t know.” That was all I could say. The man now shifted his weight with a grunt, and then came the sentence that sent boiling water cascading down my spine: “Does it look familiar?”

What could I possibly say to that? The only phrase sitting on the tip of my tongue, one I’d already repeated countless times, was “I don’t know.” And for that very reason, I couldn’t say it. They say the dead can’t speak. Maybe I was just another corpse in this morgue. Actually, no, I muttered involuntarily, stepping closer to the stretcher. This corpse wanted to say too much, probably one dead body to another. The only thing certain was that the body was miraculously still in one piece: Almost torn apart. Almost.

“What do you mean, actually no?” As the man shifted again, I caught a glimpse of the badge hanging from his belt: Law enforcement. Of course! I was sweating cold, which didn’t help anything. Except my lips, it seemed; they were moving. “Actually no, because this is a composition. Can’t you see?” Whether or not I could see it myself no longer mattered, the words had already escaped my mouth.

His response was inquisitive, yet still strangely friendly: “Hmm, what kind of composition is this? The knife used must be at least a couple centuries old. As ancient as it is… precise. Lodged so deeply in the rib-cage it was difficult even to extract.”

“A Victorian-patterned hilt, and sharpened so long ago even the grandchildren of the last sharpener have probably been forgotten. That was it exactly. Tin inlays of icy blue, matching the eye color perfectly. This night would turn out even better than expected…”

When my eyes involuntarily drifted to the corpse’s head, I was struck by a familiar “a-ha!” Where the eyes should have been, there was blood, clots, and a greenish paste-like residue. But no eyes, both were gone.

My mind froze, trying to grasp the absence. The missing eyes were like the final piece in a puzzle, doubtlessly essential. The void was accompanied by every detail I used to recall when seeing those eyes, but this time everything was absent. Those eyes had once directed everything. But now, nothing. That familiar fear awoke again: A fear lost in the depth of something incomplete, where everything loses meaning.

Once again, it was the officer’s voice that pierced the silence: “I genuinely want your thoughts. Can you elaborate on this composition?” His voice fell like a flashlight into the dark well of my thoughts. But by now, it was impossible to know what my answer would be. Those eyes… Trying to piece everything together; I took a step back, almost instinctively.

Yet the fear resonated deep inside me. I had felt this before. And now I knew what it was: A loss. Something unseen, but undeniably present. Perhaps that loss shaped the moment, the entire reality.

“Isn’t it a marvelous evening? As if everything, absolutely everything, is happening at once; and I have the ability to comprehend it all! My body brimmed with joy, a kind of enchantment. Every sound, every thought, the entire world slowed down. Like meaning condensed into a single point. The knife sunk into the victim’s serene body, the cold metal slicing slowly, tearing through skin and muscle. A silence. A calmness lingered in that moment. Even as the blade deepened, nothing changed in the victim’s eyes. But inside, everything paused, just for an instant — on that fine line between life and death. The entire universe was mine, and I belonged to the entire universe. To feel that was worth anything. In the end, every gravestone is left without visitors. Ah, how admirable it would be. After all, the first cut is always the hardest, the trickiest. After that, it’s as easy as scooping out an eye with a teaspoon.”

“That’s what I was asking, what I’ve been asking,” came the officer’s reply. His steps were slow but deliberate as he rounded the stretcher toward me. “Please clarify.”

At that moment, my eyes drifted to the left side of the body’s neck. A faded, yellowed tattoo. What had once been a bold lion figure, now nearly erased with time. The clearer its lines had once been, the more grotesque it seemed now. The body had aged, lost so much, but that mark remained. Like an identity. An old, ugly, faded identity.

“There was nothing left to explain. In this absolutism, there was no room for anything else. The poetic beauty of purpose and intention, like first love. The addictive harmony of ecstasy and longing.”

The mask is on my face now. When its cold inner shell presses against my forehead and cheeks, something stirs in me, like the awakening of something deep and repressed.

Looking at the world through the mask’s eye holes, it’s like winking at a light from within the dark. Everything’s clearer, sharper, more… justified. With every breath, its carved stone texture digs deeper into my skin. Each second, I become more of it. Or it becomes more of me. A groan, irritatingly weak, rose and nearly ruined my pleasure.

Still, my attention returned to the body before me. “What an ugly tattoo this guy has,” I thought. “And in such a visible spot. Another reason to gleefully continue; this just got much more fun.”

So decreed the Mask.

In daily life, from birth to death, doesn’t a person wear countless masks? Child, student, customer, employee, mother, father… What’s one more mask? Turns out, as much as it can possibly change you. That’s what I learned in the end.’’

This time, the worried-looking face before me belonged to the officer. The fluorescent light above us flickered once again. That flicker was like the final thread snapping between me and reality.

“Chief, are you sure you’re alright?” he asked. As my eyes drifted into the darkness, a deep echo rose from somewhere within. That final light went out in silence, as if it would never shine again. The darkness spread across the room like a void. My heart beat in a rhythm that echoed the fear inside me. The man asking about me, his voice felt like something out of a dream. Everyone, everything, seemed to be fading away. I felt like I was talking to a dead man. To my own death, to my own dead.

Why was I there? Why was I so obsessed with this body, with this image? The officer’s voice echoed again, but this time in a different tone:

“Chief, please answer me!” The fear in his voice cracked something in my eyes. In the hollow within me, something appeared, then vanished. The truth of everything lay deep below. Those eyes, those missing, perfectly missing eyes… There had always been something missing.

Gone, both within the body, and deep inside my being. My eyes now accepted that nothing would ever be whole again. A single part couldn’t complete the whole. My eyes fell once more on the corpse. The horrific emptiness in its skull sharpened the truth inside me: Everything was incomplete.

But did that incompleteness have meaning?

Not just a dead body, it was also the symbol of something lost. I held my breath. I had to accept it. Maybe everything I’d lived through existed alongside the absence of what was lost.

“Everything… everything is happening all at once,” I whispered. “And in a way… this loss affects absolutely everything.”

That sharp, jarring thought was swallowed by silence. But in the officer’s terrified face, my eyes searched for something. The emotion was so complex, so heavy, that the room itself now stared at me like a mirror.

Then, slowly, I closed my eyes. In the lightless dark, sounds, thoughts, and images blended together. A moment of depth, the feeling of being lost within that instant… The void left its mark within everything.

And in the next moment, it felt as though that mark would be erased forever.

Just like this morgue. Eternally dark.