“It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it.” — Disco Elysium
The infinite mass of flesh
of the great pale
death machine
moves once again.
Engorged limbs,
where colonial muscle once abducted like pistons,
slowly shift forward beneath split, wet skin,
the wounds of which
almost seem to scream
with blistering heat
and the thick, putrid stench of history that stubbornly remains
in its lacerations.
The machine stumbles awkwardly
and betrays the closest thing it has ever known to shame;
embarrassment.
The mask has slipped,
far longer than it had ever intended.
It grasps with an uncharacteristic clumsiness
at the skin vizard,
which is tanned like leather,
old and worn,
the signature look
of the atrocity exhibitionist.
It had humiliated itself,
to be sure,
opening itself up
for just a moment,
but we watched
and did nothing.
And wrapping the skin façade around its head,
the great pale death machine put its human face back on.
Its self image restored,
Mammon turned
back to the cameras
and smiled.
A moments silence.
And then…
‘Our regular programming will resume shortly.’
It’s all downhill from here.
