Masque of the Red Death: A Server in Hell - Assignment Example

Usually these rooms were not so bad, because there were candles within and without – but on the night of the masquerade there was not a drop of illumination allowed within – all the light flowed through the garish coloured windows. The Prince, in some say wisdom, decided to try to escape the Red Death by pulling all the people who were known to him into the abbey and shutting it tight, so as to let the world outside fend to its own devices. We still hear an occasional scream or groan of horror over the walls, but the masters do all they can to shut out any trace of reality.

For some reason, everyone stayed in the same role – we servants kept serving, despite the fact that the money we were paid was now useless, being prisoners in this hell, and the masters kept commanding, though becoming more and more ludicrous in their drive to entertain themselves, so make them forget the horrors that were actually going on. On the Night of the Masquerade, everyone seemed especially keen to abandon: abandon themselves, their mind, their cares. We servers circulated through the ghastly rooms, providing drinks and food to our masters.

While they could avoid the horrible black room with the ticking clock, we were not able to – we were commanded to be there in shifts, changing with the horrible clanking of that terrible clock every hour. When the clock rung eleven times, marking the eleventh hour of the night, my final shift in that ghastly room was over, and I felt lucky to escape with my sanity. Every time someone entered the room, I was sure it was a demon from hell, with their grotesque glittering masks and horrid dancing movements – and it took many minutes to still my heart.

I am not sure if it was worse or better that so few people entered the room – it meant that fewer images will be burned forever into my brain of the horrible revelers with their costumes bathed in bloody light, but perhaps if there were more it would make the room seem more normal, less demonic, a little bit. As the clock struck eleven, as I mentioned before, my last shift in the room was over, and a wan server entered the room to take my place. His face showed that he was nervous of his shift in the room, and I felt pity for him: the room smelled of death.

I made my way back to the room where the prince was dancing, and served small drinks and small snacks to the small people too afraid to be part of a dying world. An hour slowly passed, with time revolving slowly, but erratically, like the dance of the waltzing couples, and eventually, the clock in the horrible black room began its clamor once again. It seemed the chimes rung more slowly this time, and as had always happened when that clock rung, everything stopped. Strings on the orchestra stopped scraping, dancers stopped moving, it almost felt as if everyone in the room stopped breathing for want of air.

The twelve chimes seemed to take a lifetime, and I could see fear, thought, reality grow in the minds of the people as they stood and listened. No matter how hard they tried, they could not fully distance themselves from the Red Death, and in these quiet moments it seemed to dawn on them fully how ludicrous it was. The only face that remained unaffected was that of the Prince,