What's behind the face of the pandemic? What's going on behind all those masks? Our face masks prevent an infection of too much meaning, they keep things decently hidden, things like frank facial expression.
What do all those mouths get up to, behind their curtain of privacy? We're told that some couples have only just discovered the intimate uses of masks, now that they have so many lying around the house ... but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the delicious public freedom of keeping your face half-hidden behind a strip of cloth, and the exhilaration of knowing when you're secretly mouthing f-- you to your boss, landlord, hostile neighbour, tight-lipped criticizing parent ... or whoever else is harassing you.
Oh, the freedom of it. What will we do without masks if the pandemic ever ends? We think we hate them, but when we take them off we'll miss them. The mask has become an old friend, a familiar, rather like an old cardigan you grab on the way out in case it's chilly outside. Why have people always relished the masked ball? The theatre of masque? Because masks symbolize this and disguise that at the same time, provocatively. ("Pro-vocative": "before speaking").
Will we celebrate the end of the masked ball by making a huge ball of shared masks, and burning them on a bonfire? Some people won't, they'll store them away in drawers as keep-sakes from this era. They'll pass them on to grandchildren. Museums will collect them for future exhibits, galleries present Mask Art, publishers produce Mask Lit -- a new genre.
Masks have been around since the days of ancient drama and religious procession, and won't be going away now. Many people won't give them up just because the pandemic's over. Give up the delicious ambiguity of what goes on behind them? No way. Some will decide the pandemic's not that much over.
