masque of red death by edgar allan poe

this was a story we read way back when i was in third year high school. i honestly didn't read it again when we were tasked to do a reporting on it. but it's okay, i still remembered the gist of it. anyway, i like this. i like edgar allan poe, his deep, ensnaring words and the way he depicted things as if they belonged to a dark, secret world. and in that sense, this story was no different from the others he had written. it was dark in a sense that the element of horror was in it. there was the presence of the supernatural. it was scary the way the grandfather's clock would remind them that time was running out. the feast they were having, i think, came to represent life. and every hour sadness would fall upon them, and people would drop whatever it was they were doing to revel in it. i think that somehow, such gesture that acknowledged the passing of time, the getting closer to the end, came to represent death. whenever someone dies, we become sad. we sort of stop--that is, take the time to visit the dead and offer condolences to remaining loved ones. in the story, every chime would tell us that a certain period of time had passed. and after a number of chimes, the masque of the red death came. kinda reminds me of getting old. death usually comes to people after they had spent a great deal of time in this world.

the story reaffirmed what we already know: that death does not discriminate. both the rich and the poor die. in this life, we all work to achieve. but in the end, we all die regardless of how much we have. what a great irony.