"The Mask" by Desirea Auten

This is another classmate's work, a first draft of a short story. Remember, we were given the task of writing this in less than 5 pages (we could go over by a 1/2 of a page, but that was it. Sometimes, simply changing the font would do that.)

Take a look and see what you think. The author has stated that she's open to comments - negative or positive - about the work, so let her know what works for you. She's listening.



The Mask

by Desirea Auten

Today was the day. The day she would take her life back, she thought as she looked in the mirror at her empty bruised eyes and her battered, unsmiling mouth. She put on makeup to cover the damage just as she’d learned to do in the beginning. The mask that kept the world from seeing what her life was really like.

Mask… a word that came up often in her thoughts. He was the ultimate mask wearer and he wore it well. When they met, she had been so mesmerized by his smiling eyes and full lips. The teasing grin that seemed permanently on his face had entranced her and made her believe he was going to bring her so much joy in her life. She laughed more than she had ever laughed before, laughed til her face hurt and her belly cramped. Their courtship was quick and fiery, full of sunshine, jokes, nights spent lying together sharing all their childhood memories, their hopes, their dreams. She had never opened up to someone as she had him. He knew all of her and she truly believed she knew all of him when she quickly decided to jump in and go for it and love with all her might.

They moved in together after only a few weeks. As she applied her makeup she remembered back to those first few months, the most idyll of her life. If she’s honest with herself she might have seen the signs right away, but she was so in love, she was blinded to what was happening right before her eyes. She gave up her house and moved in with him when he said he missed her too much when they were apart and his house was bigger. They could have a family there, he had said. She agreed, her one bedroom apartment was no place to try to have children and raise a family and she could look around and see children with his smiling eyes and her dark hair running around with plenty of room to play.

She worked long hours running her own shipping company and it made her heart melt when he told her he missed her being there when he woke and seeing her first thing when he came home at night. So, she gave up her career to stay home and be there for him. She figured if they were going to start a family she might as well get used to it now and prepare herself and their home for the children that would surely come now that she had time to work on making them. She spent her initial days trying to put her stamp on their home, hanging pictures, adding feminine touches to his bachelor home and trying to make it as comfortable a place as possible. That was her first mistake.

When he walked in the door the day she had spent all day arranging things, hanging pictures, lighting candles etc, she was full of joy and excitement to see the look on his face. He had told her she could do whatever she wanted to the house and she took him literally. When he walked in the door he gave her the typical hug and kiss then told her how much he had missed her that day. As he let her go and set down his briefcase on the counter he finally looked around. She waited impatiently for his reaction. Then she saw something in his eyes she had never seen before, it looked like disappointment, and anger. She waited, confused, for him to say something.

“You don’t like it?” she asked.

“What the hell did you do today?” he spat out.

“I, uh, I thought you’d like it. I was trying to make it special for both of us, our place.”

“Looks to me like you were trying to make it your place. What are you trying to do, take over my house?” He roared at her.

“No, no!” She quickly stammered, feeling lost and confused. “I really was just trying to make it nice and thought it would make you happy. I’ll change it first thing tomorrow, I’m so sorry baby!”

He seemed to visibly relax and she felt relief flood through her. “Look I’m so sorry honey. I had a god awful day and I was just a little surprised when I came home and saw all this. I am just taking my day out on you and I’m sorry. Maybe you should take some classes or something to fill up your time while I’m at work and give you something to do.” He said with a smile. “Just try to make sure they are during the day and stay away from those college boys,” he teased.

She laughed. “College boys have nothing on you, honey. That’s the last thing you need to worry about”

As they made their way to bed that evening, she saw him frown as he glanced around at the things she had done and gave herself a mental memo to change them back the next day. She couldn’t understand his reaction but maybe he was just afraid of change, so she had all the time in the world to take things slowly and make little changes instead of redoing the house all in one day. When they got to bed he was sweet and gentle as he always was and they lay in each other’s arms teasing and laughing til they started falling asleep. At that moment all was right in her world.

Applying concealer over the blackness under her eyes, she tried not to berate herself for being a fool and seeing what she should have seen then. With a sigh, she kept applying her mask and let herself get lost in her thoughts again to another time when she should have seen the light.

He was an extremely tidy man, her, not so much. When she moved in she noticed his clothes were all organized in his closet by type of shirt, color etc and joked with him about being a little anal about organization. She was the kind of woman who came home and tossed her clothes on the floor before climbing into their giant bathtub for a soak after a long day. She had always thought too much organizing got in the way of living.

When she started being home every day, she had a little routine each day of things she would do. Tidy the house, vacuum, and do the laundry. She put her clothes on her side of the closet willy nilly. There was no order to anything on her side of the closet. It was comical to her to look at his very organized side and her chaotic messy side of the walk in closet. She thought it would be funny if he came home and found his side looking like her and hers looking like his, so she set to work to make it happen, chuckling to herself at the joke while she worked.

She organized all her clothes, separating all the pants and shirts and dresses and skirts. She lined them up by color and pointed all the collars in the same way just as his were. It was only made fun by the mischievousness she was feeling and the idea of the laugh they would have when he got home. Next came the fun part. She started putting his shirts down with his pants and switching things backwards and forwards until his side of the closet looked like hers had. She smiled and chuckled softly to herself and sat back to wait impatiently for him to come home. She busied herself making his favorite dinner and tried to force herself to stop staring at the clock every few minutes.

When she heard him pull into the garage she could barely contain her excitement. She had never been good at keeping secrets for surprises and she was determined to see this one through. He walked in without his customary smile when he saw her.

“What’s wrong baby?” She asked.

“I just had a shitty day at work and all I want to do right now is change into a t-shirt and some sweats and curl up on the couch and hold you. The lasagna smells delicious by the way.” He said with a wan smile before heading in the direction of their room.

It was at this point that she started having second thoughts about the prank she had pulled, but dismissed them almost as quickly as they came up. She figured the joke would make him laugh and maybe cheer him up a bit if nothing else. She tiptoed back towards the doorway to their room and listened for the sound of his laughter that she was sure was about to come. She hurried back to the kitchen to sit at the bar with their dinner and wait for him.

A few moments later she got her wish. He came out of the hallway and into the open area towards her and his face was redder than anything she had ever seen. For a moment she envisioned that cartoon moment when someone gets so mad they turn red and have steam come out of their ears. “Well, shit, this was not the reaction I had hoped for!” She thought to herself.

She got more and more nervous the closer he got to her. When he reached her at the bar, he finally exploded. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” He screamed at her. The rest of what he said was unintelligible to her. It was like white noise. All she could see was his finger poking at her face and here the yelling as white noise. Inside her head all she could think was how could it be happening like this? She had never seen him so angry before and wasn’t even sure what to do, all she knew was that she wanted to fix it and fix it quickly.

“Baby, I’m so sorry, I just thought you’d find it funny. I was obviously wrong and I will fix it after we have some dinner. Please don’t be mad baby, I know you’ve had a bad day and I really am sorry for playing a prank that upset you so much. Here, have some lasagna.” She attempted to placate him. That’s when he launched the plate of lasagna across the kitchen and into a cabinet.

“I’m going out to eat. I really hope my clothes are back the way they were when I get home.”

He slammed the door on the way out and she could hear him slamming the doors to his truck as he got in and drove away. She was left standing there staring at marinara sauce dripping down her cabinets and bit of lasagna and plate all over the place and thinking what the hell just happened here? She wasn’t sure which to fix first, the lasagna or the closet. Figuring the marinara would be harder to get off later, she hurriedly set to work cleaning that up first. It was like being in a nightmare, one she hoped she wake up from soon and laugh about while curled up in bed with her sweet, loving man. She wasn’t even sure who that man was who left their home a few minutes ago. She was pretty damn sure she never wanted to see him again though. That would be the last time she attempted to pull any childish pranks on him. She still wasn’t even sure where it had all gone so wrong.

She set out to quickly put his closet back the way it was. It seemed like it was taking longer than it did to undo it in the first place. She was going as fast as she could to get things put back in their place just the way he liked it. She was putting the last pair of pants in its place when she heard the garage door open. Not being sure what to expect, she was half tempted to hide, which struck her as a strange notion to have. When he walked in the room, she braced herself for what might come.

“Hi.” She spoke up tentatively.

“Oh my love! I’ve had a terrible day and taken it out on you, again. It’s true, I prefer my clothes organized. They are easier to find that way when I need something. But, I obviously overreacted to your little prank. I’m really sorry for how I behaved,, I must have scared you.” He said with remorse.

“I promise I won’t do something like that again baby. I never realized how much it would upset you and I’m so sorry. I fixed it all back to the way it was.”

“That’s my girl, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear from you. You are so smart and perfect. I just drove around and didn’t end up eating, so I’m starved and looking forward to that lasagna you made. Will you get me a plate?”

“Sure, of course I will. I love you babe.”

“I love you more.” He said with so much love in his eyes, for a moment she thought she really had dreamt it all.

When they went to bed that evening, he made the sweetest, most passionate love to her ever. As she lay there in his arms, her thoughts again wandered to what happened and was still trying to come to terms with the man she saw then compared to the one whose arms she was laying in right now basking in the afterglow of their love.

She looked down at the array of cosmetics before her on the counter, yellow for the redness in her face, green for the dark under her eyes, and the layers of foundation and powders designed to cover the flaws and felt exhausted, yet oddly energized at the thought of what lay before her. She was going to put an end to all this madness. Never again would she feel the pain he’d inflicted on her. It was time for a little justice to be dealt out, and it would be dealt by her hand.

The first time he actually hit her, she could remember how shocked she felt before the pain exploded in her face and her vision clouded. He had turned around and done it so quickly she didn’t even have time to process what was happening and thought it surely must have been an accident. She could see the shock register on his face too, and was even more convinced it was an accident and he was surely about to apologize and beg forgiveness. She was wrong.

“You shouldn’t have made me do that! Why can’t you just listen? I work every day while you stay at home and flirt with college boys and I can’t even come home and find things the way I like them. Why weren’t the dishes done and put away? How hard is it to wash those 3 bowls in the sink and put them away, how hard?” He screamed at her.

“I, uh, I…” She stammered.

“Don’t bother trying to make excuses. I read the things on your phone, I saw you were planning to meet up with that guy from your study group. Did you spend all day talking to him again? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out or that I’d let you cheat on me like my ex-wife did?” He roared.

“You don’t understand!” she pleaded, “It’s not like that. We all have to meet up to finish this project. I had to ask where he lived because we are meeting up there. The entire study group, not just me.”

Her eye was already starting to swell and she couldn’t see very well out of it. She was worried there might be damage to it and didn’t know what to do. For the first time in her life, she was at a loss. Why hadn’t she called the cops? Was this really her voice pleading with the man who just hit her?

“You better put something on that eye.” He said with a calmness she couldn’t believe he was even feeling after what he had just done to her. “I guess we had a misunderstanding, next time I hope you’ll tell me everything before I have to find it out myself and it gets this far.”

As in the times past he was loving and gentle with her more than ever that night, but this time she lay there and tried not to cry, wondering just what was happening to her and when her life and gotten this out of control.

Makeup done, she looked in the mirror at the final product. She looked overdone, but still quite pretty and was satisfied by what she saw. She wanted him to see what he was leaving behind and that she was strong and beautiful and had the will to live.

His favorite dinner was on the table that night when he got home. He rushed over to give her a kiss and sit at the table across from her.

As he ate they made small talk about his day and asked about hers and what she had done. She related some small anecdotes and watched for the signs that the poison she had put in his lasagna were taking effect. She smiled when she saw him look up at her with horror in his eyes. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

“What have you done? How…” he moaned as his head collapsed in the plate of lasagna.

“Never again will you touch me or hurt me, never.” She said with satisfaction knowing he couldn’t hear her since he was dead, but it felt good to say it anyway. She sat there for a few more moments before getting up and grabbing the phone.

“Hello, I’ve just killed my husband.” She said calmly to the 911 operator. “I’ll be waiting for you to show up.”

Then she sat back and enjoyed the last few moments of her freedom before the cops got there and thought about how worth it it all was. She would gladly do the punishment for what she had done knowing that she would never again have to feel his hands on her or the fear anymore. She smiled to herself, yes, it was all worth it.

copyright - All rights to the work posted on this site are retained by Cass Van Gelder. If you'd like to use some of my work, please ask. To do so, the permissions must be spelled out in writing...from me...I meant it. I have mean cats; don't make me use them.

The Process of Writing and Lightning Bugs

I've mentioned already that I'm taking a writing class so that I can get more focused and maybe it'll help me with some of the issues I have with writing. I've also talked about posting my work. And I thought about this.

Rather than post a pristine piece of work (or at least in my most humble of opinions...), I thought I might show you the process of writing, the real dirty, nitty gritty of what writing can look like before it becomes something usable.

Why? Because when I was growing up, I believed that writers never really had to edit, that the gorgeousness that was the finished product was just pouring out of the famous writer's fingers. And then I became a writer.

Mmm-hmmm...

Yea, it doesn't exactly work that way.

So, I thought, what better way to show people than to show them the actual process.


For class, I've had to write a short story of less than 5 pages, topic of my choice, but the pages had to be formatted in a particular way. So, the first version of this without any editing other than spell check (and you'll thank me later for that) is the result, a story I've called, "Lightning Bug". Curiously enough, I wrote the title down, thinking to myself that as a child this was one of my most favorite phrases. I loved lightning bugs themselves, but better still I hated the word "firefly". Flies were gross and stuck to pies in the middle of the summer. Lightning bugs, however, were fun to watch and even more fun to play with, as much as one can play with a bug in heat (yes, I found out sooooo much about why the bugs even do this when I started searching for other names for the critter.

The class will be critiquing the work along with other works in the class. I will post the raw version here. Then I'll edit it and repost it before I turn it in before Sunday (my class deadline). Once I get the critiques back, I'll share them with you (even the ones who completely hate me and take it out on my poor little short story, which invariably happens.) 

So, here is...


 

Lightning Bug

Firefly.

Lampyrid.

Noctiluca.

Pyrophorus noctiluca. That’s what you call it in Latin, the wondrous illuminated firefly with its tiny fat belly full of florescent goodies. Our back yard in Pearl, Mississippi, was filled with them, just after the sun would hang on the edge of the hills, the front cement steps of all the houses would fill with the neighborhood mothers, their long-haired daughters seated between their knees as they fought the tangles in their hair. I would chase the lightning bugs while my sisters sat on the sidewalks, playing with their cheap versions of Barbie and the leftover accessories from Granma’s Avon samples. Invariably, I would catch one and hold it between my two cupped hands, feeling it flutter lightly against my palms. When the ache of having held one captured for too long tugged at me, I opened my fingers and let the lightning bug flutter clumsily away.

It had been two months since we left Pearl, skirting away in the 1959 Ford van my daddy bought from Mr. Humphrey’s down at the Piggly Wiggly. He said the shift was on the column, but that it could pull stumps out like no ox ever could. She was a strong girl, he said wistfully, counting Daddy’s wrinkled $20 bills. We set off for Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the near dead of night, exhausted from packing and crying good-byes. It would be the first time we have ever lived more than 10 miles away from my grandpa and grandma and I wasn’t quite sure we’d find our way back in a timely manner. Still, summer was easy into its middle, causing my sisters and me to sweat while we slept in the back seats, even with all the windows rolled down.

I was thrilled when Mama announced we’d be starting school two weeks earlier than back home. Since said it was ‘cause the kids down here got out earlier than we did because of the roofers. They couldn’t work the tar once the devil had gotten in the wind and caused the air to burn when it touched you.

School was my most favorite thing in the entire world. I could barely sleep the nights before a test, not from fear, but from excitement, the sheer pleasure of handling the freshly mimeographed pages, smelling their sweet ink in the air and the dampness of the pages.

When Mrs. Robinson assigned us fifth graders a project of selecting a country and then presenting it, most of my classmates showed up with discarded shoeboxes filled with cutouts from their mothers’ Good Housekeeping magazines. I had selected Italy and spent the prior three weeks shaping a dome to mimic the cathedral foyer, painting the interior with cobalt blue I had bought at the Ben Franklin store, puffed fleur-de-lis I had painted on the ceiling, fresh sprigs of rosemary to imitate the decorative bushes in the foyer, and then I rigged Daddy’s leftover tiny white Christmas lights to look like sconces near the alter. I turned the lights off in the room when I presented my diorama that Friday, and had borrowed my cousin Kyle’s Walkman so I could play Pavarotti singing like he would be in my chapel. The room was quiet and chilled, even after I turned the lights back on. Nobody in the room would talk to me, not even Mrs. Robinson. Kim Crittenden whispered behind her hand to Christy Musemeci and I heard the word brownnoser behind her fingers. I wiped my face just in case.

It wasn’t the first time the room got quiet after I was done. But I didn’t mind. I had become used to sitting by myself at lunch, sometimes with June Connell, who nobody – not even the girl with purple fingers everybody teased and said she had lice – would sit with June, sometimes June would sit with me. But even that tapered off after awhile and I began to eat my bologna sandwiches alone while I reread the outside of my Partridge Family lunch box.

Mama took me and Liv and Amy, my sisters, over to Little Rock to pick out new school dresses. She said Hot Springs didn’t have nothing that nice girls could wear outside of their front yards so we’d have to find the next big town over, and Little Rock was the biggest - four Sears, two JC Penney’s, and a full 2-story mall just like they had in the movies with its own Swenson’s and Casa Bonita.

Hours later, we emerged with white crisp bags full of dresses and tight and slightly-high heeled shoes that tapped like dance shoes while I walked. My favorite dress was the creamy colored one with bright red cherries all over it. When I turned around to show Mama how I looked, the skirt lifted up and made me look like a ballerina in the mirror. I made sure I carried that bag all around the mall and kept it with me the whole two hour drive home, rather than let it sit in the trunk and risk getting car fumes on it.

“This year will be different, girls,” Mama said to the three of us. “Won’t it, Grace?”

“Yes, Mama,” I replied happily.

“We’ll get you some friends for sure,” she said more quietly, but she looked in the rear view mirror at me and smiled.

“Yes, Mama,” I replied hesitantly.

The night before school started, I tossed and turned, excited to wear my new dress and use my new supplies. I loved the way fresh pencils would have such a fine sharpness that made my signature look even more impressive. It irritated me to no end when one would break, especially during a test when I was concentrating so hard. Every time, I’d be forced to walk to the front of the class, being watched as I did, listening to the snickering behind the boys’ hands, a slight push as I went by.

One time, right after pep club had started and Mama had spent the night before making my gorgeous gold puffed sleeved shirt. I had worn it that morning in spite of the test because there was a pep rally after school. I had gotten up to sharpen my pencil and on my way back, I saw Kim Crittenden whispering to Mark Bailey. Before I could figure out what she was saying, Mark’s foot went right out into my path. I came down hard on the floor. Kim rushed to help, she said later, but instead she jabbed my elbow hard. Normally, it wouldn’t have mattered, but Kim knew I was harboring a large scab under the silky golden fabric, a scab that easily came loose, causing blood to ooze out and permanently stain the elbows of the shirt. I sat in my seat, in front of Kim and Mark, making sure to wipe my tears only when I could make it look like I was scratching an itch.

I didn’t want Mama to see the stain after all her hard work so I lied and said I didn’t like pep club afterall and I quit.

My fresh pillow now burned against my cheek, fresh tears collecting on the pillowcase. I fell asleep without dreaming about my new crisp folder or my scented notebook paper.

The next day, Mrs. Hart, my new sixth grade teacher, had our whole class introduce ourselves to each other by coming to the front of the class. As each on came up, the others would make jokes or say their names in funny ways, the way they had for all the years they had known each other. I was the only one in the room who had not been in kindergarten to now with the same children.

When I stood at the front of the class, they were all silent, listening intently. I saw one girl, called Savannah, lean in to whisper to the boy named Elmer. When she pulled back, I saw her smile at me. As I passed by her desk to reach mine, my whole body tensed and prepared for the fall. Instead, she reached forward with a fresh pencil, offering me one of hers with butterflies on it.

When lunch came, a small group crowded around me, asking me smiling question after another, so curious about this place so far away, father than they had ever been. Some looked on with curious looks; others nodded with seemingly knowing and understanding nods, as if they knew exactly where I was talking about.

After school, we all clamored together, teasing and tickling as we walked. When we came to our house first, Mama seemed surprised but recovered and asked would “Miss Savannah” like to join us for dinner. She did indeed and went inside to call her mother, who was only too delighted to have one less person for her maid, Elsie, to cook for.

After dinner, Savannah and I ran around our new front yard, begin to wear a new path in our new yard. We pulled out my sisters’ cheap Barbies and played fairyland in our bushes.

As the sun dipped below the hang of the trees, the lighting bugs appeared, twinkling under the weeping willow. I put out my cupped hands and captured one between my fingers and Savannah did the same. I peeked inside and watched the lightning bug lighting the inside of my hand, turning it pink. Savannah did the same.

Suddenly, Savannah took a hold of her lightning bug between her fingers and drug its tail across her shirt, leaving an iridescent trail. She looked at me, smiling, the remnants of her bug in her hand.

I smiled back weakly, feeling my lightning bug clamoring against the bars of my fingers. I picked him up by his thorax. Looking at Savannah, I dragged his body against my shirt, leaving a trail behind. I quickly dropped the remainder and looked down at my belly, all beautiful and lit now, already fading. I smile at Savannah and she returned it, all big and loopy and giddy. She grabbed my hand and off when ran into the bushes, into fairyland.

____________________________________________________________________

You're welcome to post your comments and suggestions here, folks. I'll be posting my newer version, likely before the day is through.

Thanks for listening....

copyright - All rights to the work posted on this site are retained by Cass Van Gelder. If you'd like to use some of my work, please ask. To do so, the permissions must be spelled out in writing...from me...I meant it. I have mean cats; don't make me use them.