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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 27th May 2011 at 3:37 AM
Default Just a monologue.
This a monologue corresponding to a mask that we made in my Theatre Arts (Drama) class. I don't have a picture of the mask right now, but I'll try to put it up later.

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Terin sat silently in the ring of torches, their flames casting sinful light on his young body. The elders of the tribe gathered dry palm fronds, and set them around Terin. When five rings of fronds surrounded the young boy, the torches were doused with corn oil, made from leftover ears of corn from the last year’s harvest. The rings of fronds set fire as the hungry flames crept down the torches, made from stone so they would not burn in the cleansing fires, casting vivid light on Terin, and the mask that he wore.

The mask composed of gems, bark, and leaves, symbolised Haviok, the tribe’s god. The gems cast vivid light on the ground around Terin. The blue, for purity, cast a light like the sea around him. The white, for innocence, cast light on the ground like that of snowflakes. And the green, for childish greed, cast green clods on the ground like the earth was light from the inside.

The mask represented the embodiment of childhood, from the carefree days to the numerous scrapes, cuts and bruises that came from the everyday life of a child.
Haviok, the tribe’s most sacred of gods, represented the transition of childhood to adulthood, the shedding of a child’s life, and the taking on of responsibilities.

Terin stood, and said in the strongest, most mature voice his 16-year old body could muster, “As I remove this mask and cast it away, I toss not only this mask, but my childhood, and become a man. I take on full responsibility for my family, my home, and mine own actions. I join the ranks of the men, and accept the knowledge that I could be called to war at any time, be called upon to defend, or to condemn, any peer of mine, or be sentenced to torture, imprisonment, or death for anything that could potentially endanger my people. I reject any thoughts of ever returning to my childhood, to the carefree days, to the vivid imagination of a boy. In the name of Haviok, I shed this mask, and into the fires I toss it, so not a trace of it, nor my childhood, ever remain. I declare myself… a man.”
The fire popped and crackled as it received the offering. The greedy flames licked up Terin’s childhood, cleansing Terin’s spirit of his younger days. The young man walked away, to join the other men in celebration.

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I was thinking, actually, that I could expand this and make it into a coming-of-age short story. What do y'all think?
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