Pretty Faces

• Javiera Scarratt, Grade 11, Newtown High School Of Performing Arts
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

The train pulls into Circular Quay. Looking out the grimy window I see the glimmering, shining skyline; under which people are dying, people are suffering; people are angry, people are sad; people are longing, people are waiting.
Our train passes another, travelling on parallel tracks; never to meet or to touch. Face - façade. How close the two words are. How much do our pretty faces cover up? How much of our inner, dark, terrible and beautiful complexities are hidden? How many of our people are hiding oppression? Always, our lives are covered by a shining, glorious front. One of fragile prettiness and delicate uniformity.
The guard makes an announcement over the intercom. How desperate our society is! How much are we willing to lean on the authorities? Are we yet finished with handing the keys of change over to someone whose only desire is for power, money, control? As our lives spiral down, deeper and deeper and deeper into the abyss of the hidden, one must ask: how much is concealed? What are the secret magnitudes of all the lives, all the memories, all the experiences that are swept away with the coal dust?
The chug-chug-chug of the train is speeding up, gathering intensity. And why does no one stand up? Why do we accept this system without question? Why cannot one person alone make that fatal decision, choice, verdict? Why will none of us change the world?
The train rolls into a tunnel. Where the brick, glass and metal just a moment ago touched the sky has become the shadowy wall of the tunnel, throwing my dark reflection into sharp relief. I see my pretty face mirrored in the window, flaws hidden by the incoherence of the dark echo.