“The Mask Dealer”
Photo & text by David Norden with the help of ChatGPT, in the twisted tones of Tarantino, the surreal textures of Lynch, and the gritty pulse of Scorsese.
ANTWERP, August 2, 2025 – 3:03 AM – RAINING.
The neon sign of BuyAfricanAntiques.com flickered like a bad heartbeat. Inside the cramped shop, shelves creaked under the weight of ancestral spirits. Wood, bronze, and whispers.
David Norden, in his sixties but sharper than a knife fight in a phone booth, sat behind a glass counter. He wore a deep blue velvet jacket and sipped 30-year-old whisky. A carved Bena Biombo mask stared back at him. Not just stared — judged.
Cue voiceover — Norden’s voice — like aged whisky and three decades of double-crosses:
“You don’t deal in African art this long without meeting ghosts.
Some are carved. Some are flesh.”
FLASHBACK: 1993 – DAKAR.
A young David argues with a Senegalese trader over a Songye power figure. The trader laughs, saying:
“You think you’re buying wood.
You’re buying a curse.”
BACK TO PRESENT.
The bell above the shop door dings. A man walks in — soaked, jittery, too clean-cut to be clean. He calls himself Pavel. Wears a trench coat like a disguise. He's carrying a bundle wrapped in oil-stained canvas.
“You David Norden?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“I got something. Something… old.”
David unrolls the bundle. It’s a Kifwebe mask, but not like any he's seen. The lines are sharper. Painted not with natural pigment but what looks like dried blood, white Kaolin and ash.
“Where’d you get this?”
“From a diplomat in Kinshasa. Long story. Let’s just say… he doesn’t need it anymore.”
David touches the mask. The lights in the shop flicker. A low, barely audible chant begins to echo. Pavel doesn’t hear it. But David does.
He stares at the mask, then at Pavel.
“This isn’t for sale.”
“It’s already sold. To the wrong people. I need to make it disappear.”
“Disappear?”
“You still got that guy in Paris who deals in… unstable fetishes?”
David opens a drawer. Pulls out a FN 1960s Browning Hi Power pistol.
Old, reliable. Belgian. Like him.
“What did you bring into my shop, Pavel?”
FLASH CUT: MONTAGE
-
A tribal ceremony deep in the Congo — the same mask worn by a man whose eyes are rolled back.
-
A private auction in Geneva, where oligarchs drink champagne and bid in silence.
-
A police photo of a dead customs agent with a hollowed-out skull.
BACK IN THE SHOP.
The mask's eyes move. Just a twitch. But enough.
David stands. Slips on gloves. Wraps the mask back up.
“Get in the car.”
“Where we going?”
“To bury the past.
If we’re lucky, it won’t dig itself out.”
CUT TO BLACK.
A muffled scream.
A heartbeat.
Then Norden’s voice again:
“Some pieces belong in museums.
Some in collections.
Others?
They belong six feet underground.”
