Onions

It was a late afternoon. The sun was setting, leaving a deep red hue behind. Everything was dim. He could barely see anything, but the old man continued to polish his russian dolls, even the tiniest piece that couldn't fit anything.
It may have been the hundredth time that his grand son had seen his grandpa clean the dolls. Yet, he never understood why his grandpa cared so much. The little kid, being a kid, asked "Grandpa, why do you like the dolls so much?" The man answered, "You know, people are like onions. Hm.. Do you like Ms. Leigh?"
"I do, I do!"
"Well, she's a very nice person, but perhaps she might be very mean to her siblings?"
"Really?" said the boy, who could not imagine his teacher being mean.
"Sometimes, people can pretend to be someone else. When you get to know someone you slowly reveal who you really are. I like these dolls because they remind me that people are layered."
"Okay... So what happens if I marry someone. Would I get to know all about her?"
"Well, you might, you might not. Sometimes, people hold on to their deepest secrets. For some people, it is what keeps them alive. It's their soul. They are afraid that if they tell it to someone, they'll lose their soul."
"What if I reaaaally love someone and share eeeverything with her? Am I going to die?" said the boy, his eyes widening.
The man chuckled, "No, no, no. You see, the thing that makes who we are is not the secrets nor the essence that you don't share with anyone. The layers define who you are. See you told Jane that you like dogs?"
Sheepishly, he said, "Yes?"
"But I know that you really like cats. So are you a cat person or a dog person?"
"I'm a cat person!"
"Noo, that was a trick question," the old man grinned. "You are both. When you pretend for long enough, you'll learn to like dogs. It becomes part of you. There is no such thing as pretension. There's only action. You are no more the person that you think you are than the person that you pretend to be"
"..." The boy walked away, confused.
The old man kept on polishing the dolls. The remains of the sun tainted the sky with a purple dye. He was sad, but his sorrows could not fill up the void in his heart. He lied. He was nothing more than layers of pretensions. He was hollow. His anger, his passion, his love, they were what people expected to see from him. He gave them what they wanted. But he was only a collage of images, strewn together to hide nothing.
He put the dolls back together. The dusk was now over.