The Mask.

The Mask

The morning mists are never kind, never joyful. Within their cool embrace lurks all manner of monsters and horrors, beasts and possibilities that are pried from the most heinous of mankind’s nightmares. Within their embrace treads abominations, the likes of which would make a lunatic quake. I felt them drawing near, I felt them sucking in the very same air that I now breathed, and yet I knew that they would never get me. They would never get me because they did not exist. Did I exist? Perhaps.

I give a wet sucking breath, feeling my lungs ache because of my old Soviet era filters. My vision is concentrated through my two lenses and I can hardly see my friend’s Ford Focus loom out of the mists. The engine whines, but behind my rubberized mask I can hardly hear it. He nods as he pulls up and I grab the two plastic bags containing a mixture of my effects and a pair of mystery flip flops.  I grab hold of the door, my arms feel alien and clumsy, perhaps a delayed after effect  from my auto accident?

Sinking into the seat, I nod a greeting to my friend and slip into a quasi trance. My lenses fog up and I shudder slightly as I remember the events of the last few days. First a party, chaotic and largely forgotten behind an alcohol tinged haze, then a desperate cleanup, an affair that misses the semen stain in my parents bed, courtesy of another friend of mine and his girlfriend. Naturally I was furious when he filled me in on what he had done while I was busy being semi conscious, naturally it was also too late to clean it up. I was briefly in the present, long enough to mutter something about a cold morning, a mutter that was lost in my mask. Finally I reach the most horrifying event, I rolled my car.

The confusion and terror I felt briefly overwhelm me, and I am happy that I wear my mask as my eyes mist over. I’m still afraid, still realizing that I’m lucky to be alive. Back in the present; we pull into my high school, I take a deep wet-sucking breath through my filters and mentally prepare myself for another day of the mundane. My first twenty steps are the best, my step is still springy and I am not worn down by the sheer idiocy flowing out from my peers. The wind whips ominously but I do not hear it, a light drizzle stings the faces of everyone but I do not feel it, I feel nothing.

Pushing the doors open, I am greeted with the organized chaos that is high school before classes commence. Dozens of freshmen loiter around, enjoying their conversations, and generally infuriating the upperclassmen. Young girls blink slowly, suggestively, yet most of them are hideous. I walk on, my face an unmoving slab, reality conveniently shut out in favor of the mask. I notice many of the freshman and sophomore girls looking at me, I’m a Junior and thus highly attractive if only because I’m older. Some of them are quite pretty, and I am quite an able flirt, the mask does not allow interaction though, it does not allow love. Instead of returning the glances or stares I walk on, my steps sounding like a diver’s upon the ocean floor.

Light tan lockers line the hallways, they are all dented or damaged in some way. The lock turns, not because I want it to, but because my body is caught in the zombie like state that forces my mind into the routine that is school. I do not suffer my way through the day, instead I merely don the mask and sink away into what is little more than a dream but much less enjoyable. Everywhere I look is ash, is gray, is a distinct absence of substance. Everyone I meet are hollow, are little more than automated cadavers, are meaningless. My parents, well, my father hates me. Surprisingly it’s not because of me, but because of my friends and the previously mentioned stain. Regardless of my lack of compassion, or the lack of compassion directed towards me, I march on.

Everyday I see the same people, everyday I make eye contact with girls who surely think I’m interested in them when I’m really just trapped in the mask. There is one, there is one who seems like she can see what is happening. She fixes me with the most knowing stares, the most piercing looks, I am convinced she knows. She is beautiful, but she is young, two years my junior. I am an upperclassman; I can do what I want with whom I want, but I cannot force myself to cast off the mask in the name of this pretty girl. I see her everyday though, and so I wonder; is she real?

The final bell rings, I spring up from my desk and move to leave the school as quickly as possible. The mask is loose, I feel my clean air leaking. More glances exchanged with people I see everyday, including the girl, I return none of the greetings and none of the glances. Yet another friend drives me home, I help him steer while he texts and I quietly wonder about my jeep. Was that real? Is any of this real? The lurch as we pull into my driveway tells me it is. I bid my friend goodbye and he drives off, leaving me in the only place where I can remove the mask. It comes off with a sickening sucking noise, my face is sore from wearing it all day and while I momentarily rejoice I remember that tomorrow the mask returns.

I sit heavily in my room, the shadows and chaos of the disorganized chamber relaxing me as much as my customary mug of chamomile tea. My body shivers as I let the stress of the day roll off of me, the trials and tribulations petty compared to most but for me, the iconic American teenager, they are huge. I sit alone, in the seclusion of my room, for several minutes until I finally log onto an internet chat room and face book. Nssanctuary is vibrant as always and I enjoy the minutes I spend talking with my friends and fellow Nationstates players. That comes to an end however and I’m back to investigating a possible solution to the mundane; La Legion.

The French Foreign Legion is never a serious plan of mine, it is never more than just a joke I play on myself when life decides to give me a short straw. I’m planning on serving in the military anyways; the United States Marine Corps via the NROTC, that is assuming my parents pay for university and I manage to get in. Grades and athleticism come naturally, it is my tendency to slip into the mask that could prevent me from achieving what I want. I slip so far that I don’t notice things until I’m already screwed over for lack of a better word. The Legion is number two plan, number two after the NROTC.

My mother comes home, I smile and greet her warmly. She has forgiven me, she loves me again. The warmth radiating off of her is enough to keep me out of the mask until the next day, it is enough to allow me to spend the rest of my night in a quiet and obedient silence as my father comes home and proceeds to hate me. I trust that in a few weeks or months he’ll tire of hating me as he usually does and we will be close again, until then I have mi madre and La Legion. It is enough for now.

The morning alarm is a wail that pierces my dream just as it gets interesting. I shed sleep with a soft grunt and quietly don the only thing that keeps me sane, I don the mask. In the quiet darkness of my pre-dawn room, the mask dons me.

Do I exist? No, I do not exist. There is only the mask. There only ever was the mask.