Face Masks

• Matthew Pinkerton, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2019

Face Masks

Maisie awoke late in the evening sudden as a stir in wind, too fast to realise the peeling sensation of her face sticking to the bed sheets, she had forgotten to take it off. She stretch and yawned until pausing at the sound of an apartment door opening. She didn’t have any roommates, and no one was visiting at this hour, she thought to herself. Rattling her brain for who it may be who let themselves in, could it be an intruder? a thief? She thought best to not wary on the worst possibilities. In less than only her fluffy pyjama bottoms and oversized Rolling Stones shirt, bare white feet and ogre like makeup choice she shuffled her way to the edge of the bathroom door to peer into the lounge room for a better look for the source of the sound.

Her eyes strained behind the green pasture surprisingly still clinging to her pores and in the extent of her vision she catches the lines of a body. A person hanging by the terrace edge on the far end of her apartment who Maisie noted as rather small man although lanky with his clothes barely clinging to him drooping under their own weight. The long stream of cigarette smoke stemmed from his large unkept mane which sagged as he began to hang over the bar with his stomach, dropping his weight against the rail while Maisie began to walk closer, she almost went to call out to him and ask him why was he in her room? But she never did, instead in anxiety she still waddled her way to him silently hoping he’d simply turn around to her harsh words and leave but he never turned, and she stayed waddling in her towel and green façade. Eventually the cold draft from the open terrace blew against her legs, she was close to him now, the wind sticking the face mask tighter to her.

The man suddenly turned and locked eyes with Maisie and screamed a sharp shriek at the masked green horror before him. His body jumps in fright and he edges he leans against the railing where his momentum takes him over followed by Maisie’s violent scream and late hands which grasp the railing, darting her eyes to watch the man fall to the bottom of the building to the path below in the night, where despite the dark she can see him clearly, silhouetted in death after he thuds harshly to the ground with a crunch of lifeless weight that stings Maisie's heart silent and in critical awe.