“Don’t wear your mask for more than a week,” Doctor All Collage said. “It can lead to interesting side effects.”
Collage shivered in the recliner when he was asked to describe what may happen if one were to wear a mask longer. “I had a patient named Boddee Yoder,” he said. According to Collage, Yoder refused to take his mask off. His once blue surgical mask was dark gray with blotches of orange and yellow around it.
When Yoder went in for an ankle operation, Collage had the opportunity to remove the mask. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom,” were the words Collage used to describe the skin beneath Yoder’s mask. “Mouth, nose, all gone, until I looked at the mask.”
“If you see someone with a mask on, there’s a 75 percent chance they no longer have a face beneath it,” EMU Epidemiologist Fay Knews said. “We’re calling this, ‘The Mask Phenomenon’. As of now, there isn’t a known cure. If you find your mouth and nose have migrated to your mask, please take it off, EMU has a new circle process where you can speak with others like you. But whatever you do, don’t lose your mask.”
“At the beginning of the Pandemic I tried to throw my first mask away.” Alita Owata said this was after wearing the mask for about a month. “When I looked in the mirror as I entered the bathroom there was something obviously missing.” She recalls yelling to find her mask. “I had to rely entirely on muscle memory. I’ve never yelled without being able to hear myself.” Eventually, she did hear her mouth yelling from the Northlawn trash room. After she found it, she said, “I wondered why everything stank so much.”
Yoder and Owata met to talk about how to best support others going through the same process. “It’s kind of nice you know,” Yoder said. “Imagine how fun this would be at the pool!”
Indeed, multiple world-renowned swimmers, such as Phichael Melps, have come out of retirement to intentionally incur ‘The Mask Phenomenon’ to beat his old world-records.
“I see it as a gift,” Owata said. “You know, the number one reason people die in fires? Suffocation. Now firefighters will be able to go in without a bulky oxygen tank.”
Unfortunately, autocratic governments have taken advantage of this new phenomenon, taking citizens’ masks from them. “It brings a whole new meaning to free speech when the people are unable to speak.” Knews said. Rest assured though; the government is feeding them.
“On a grocery run I left my mask at home, and I thought about it; If I don’t have air coming out of me then, do I even need to wear a mask?” Yoder said. “Also, my nose was running back in my dorm room, so I had to go get it.”
