Men in Masks

                                                            Men in Masks

Got up in the morning and performed my usual ablutions. After shaving I dressed in the dark bedroom with the wife still sleeping, grabbed my rucksack, got to the car, and drove to work.
I parked and walked to the office through long corridors, past people I knew and knew not, all murmuring good wishes behind masks and nodding.
At my desk, drinking my first coffee, a secretary stopped at the door.
"What happened to you?" she asked, her eyes wide above her mask.
"Huh?" was my astute reply.
"Your face!"
I walked with her to the bathroom and inspected the mirror. A one-inch stripe of thick blood was clotted from my ear to my jaw. I scrubbed, she inspected, and we found a deep nick below my sideburn from my early shave. For ten minutes I had walked through the halls and ridden elevators with the face of a man who had just lost a knife fight and no one had said a word.
In a land and time of intense concern for one's fellows, I found that disappointing.