He watched yet another tourist browsing the shop. They always browse. Knick-knacks, things that look like antiques (but usually weren't). All the things your average boring vagabond would think a treasure or mistaken for a long-lost relic of immeasurable worth.

Giggles sounded from the group of 20-something women in sarongs and strappy sandals all gathered around a young man holding up one of the wooden masks his dinky little shack sold. They were old and not unique. Save, perhaps, one. The encircled male held it up and made noises behind the facade as if a ghostly haunt.

He rolled his eyes at the group's antics.

"OoooOoo~ I've come to steal your soul back to the underworld where you shall be my queen forever!"

Oh, brother.

More giggles and even a squeal or two.

"You have to get it! It'll be just too cool for the beach party tonight!"

Beach party...

Dusty sighed.

When the male in question made to put the mask back, the females all bemoaned his end to their fun and Dusty dipped his head again, his eyes refocusing on the sketch that took up space on the wood counter beside a fingerprint on the age-fogged glass display case. The commotion faded along with the group.

Other groups of shoppers, browsers extraordinaire, connoisseurs of the window arts, came and went. Old trinkets that looked like island antiques or souvenir keychains and the like were snatched up and tucked into bags before going on their merry way.

Hours later, with the sun well past the horizon and the last vestiges of dusk lingering in the air, Dusty pulled the chain fence down over the wide shop entrance and hooked a lock through where two holes met.

“Hey! I need to return this thing!”

Dusty jolted in surprise, a shiver shooting through him like lightning and his head turned to look over his shoulder. His back slapped into the metal gate that formed a wall at his back, his head connecting equally hard as he caught sight of a male body in a tank and board shorts…and a face that Dusty recognized only because he’d had it hanging in his store for years now. In the shadows of a corner with all the other unsuspected, inconspicuous to modern society’s eyes, death masks.

“You have to help me!”

“I’m sorry, man, but the masks are all sales final.”

“That’s okay! I stole it and just need you to get it off and take it back.”

Dusty’s head shook, “Once a death mask is attached, it can’t be removed.”

“I don’t want to be King Tut, dude!”

“Marcus Aurelius actually…”

“Who?”

“He was a Roman Emperor.”

Tears of distress from the wearer leaked from the open eyes of the mask, the liquid marking twin lines over the face painted like aged marble, and Dusty watched the process he’d never fully witnessed as the stone edifice of someone whose time ended long ago melded onto the young man’s, easily erasing the visual evidence genetics had gifted him at birth.

Within minutes, the beach-loving youth, likely as much a tourist as the girls he’d entertained earlier, disappeared. The body straightened, the tears stopped, and without another word, took on a stern expression, turned, and left, going not down the street lined with cars but into the trees. The tropical forest humanity had cleared yet left wild where it suited.