There's a fellow in an orange sweatshirt sitting at the table by the window, sewing.  He's making a mask of some sort. Black on one side, white on the other. I saw him try it on a few minutes ago. It wraps around his head, and ties with a ribbon. He's got several of them. At first, it startled me. To look up and see this fellow wearing a black mask in a coffee shop. If he'd been on a plane or in an airport, I might have had to tackle him. Frisk him for firearms. But since it's only a coffee shop, I figured he wasn't going to blow us all up.

Sophie, a darling little girl wearing a knitted pink-rainbow ankle-length sweater, is at the door, ringing the bells. A few minutes ago she was running up and down the hallway, singing "I love you, You love me." It's a cheery song for a dreary day. Raining as usual in the valley.

I'm putting off my task for the day. A trip to the cemetery. Usually, I like wandering through the library of the dead. I'm in Oregon, where none of my ancestors are buried, so the headstones in these graveyards are like the covers of books I haven't read yet. I'm curious about the people and who loved them and the dramas of their lives.

But, today. Well, today, I'm going to the gravesite of a child I once knew. A story that ended suddenly. Tragically. There's a headstone where a storybook ought to be.

If she sings, still, and I suspect she sings louder now than ever, it's in the hallways of heaven. There in the safety of God's eternal protection, she sings without any fear:

I love you. You love me.

And I sit here, wondering about the masks of white and black that we all wear. We pull them over our heads, turning the pure side outward, hiding the darkness within. Thinking all the while -- I'm not like them -- those folks who wear their evil outwardly. I'm better than that.

As we click the channel away from the news of yet another story too tragic for us, us pure in heart, us white-faced liars.