Your mind wears a mask

I love a good crowd. There are so many people in all shapes and sizes, everything about by passing strangers fascinates me, I am a writer after all; well I try to be really.

 The lady at the flower shop has been putting up her flower display the exactly same for five years, and always stops admire her handy work while unconsciously fiddling with her wedding ring.

She thought leaving her husband and starting fresh would make her happy, and after all this time it still hasn’t.

The business man in a perfectly ironed suit, with shoe polish on the edge of his pant leg keeps glancing at the new waitress with longing in his eyes; she however is so busy with waiting tables, she doesn’t know he’s there.

After all the years he’s spent hating him, he still turned into his father: rich, miserable and lonely.

The blond women with nails practically chewed to the stub, keeps glumly starring off into space between nibbling at her muffin and cleaning spilled coke of off her four year old that doesn’t resemble her slightly.

She never thought a one night stand would turn her into a mother.

I sighed and sipped my coffee; I spat it back into my mug. There truly is nothing worse than the taste cold coffee leaves in your mouth. The waitress smiled and set down a readymade cup of coffee. We smiled and nodded: a ritual exchange. I, like most people, am truly a creature of habit. Every Saturday I sit at this same table by the window, and scribble about passerbyers and my fellow cafe customers.  Some people boringly enough result in paragraphs others turn up full-fledged novels by the end of my second coffee which is always consumed at its still decent temperature.

I went to the till too paid for my coffees. “Anything interesting today?” said the cashier, Stacy I think, while getting my change. “Slow day I’m afraid, although there was the one bald guy I managed quite a few pages on.” I replied smiling. “By the way you if you had to find a fancy dress in the mall where would you look?”

“Oh, that’s easy Gowns Galore next to the old hardware store.”

I thanked her and made my way towards the store. I was feeling a bit down again, probably just hormones messing with my mood. I sighed, tonight was the annual start of school dance, one among the many social events I despise. I attend Richwood, a fancy private school for “eager and special young minds” snob code for the families who have a different sports car for everyday of the week. I hate it, especially since I'm a scholarship kid as if being “that weird girl” didn’t make enough of social outcast.

I walked into the dress shop, it was a smallish shop not very flashy but it did live up too its name. Every inch of the store was filled with dresses all hung on racks, mounted on the wall and piles on chairs. I walked through the roughs of dresses the small walkway cluttered with satin and sequence over flowing into the path.

I browsed through the hoards of dress finding fault with each: missing button, a fault in the lace pattern, a loose thread. I settled for a black strapless dress covered with chiffon with an organza on the one side that makes it look like a waterfall.

****

I entered the ballroom of the hotel were the dance was being hosted. The music thumping from the speakers was loud, there were people holding plastic cups talking while laughing louder than necessary, couples were dancing intertwined so close you couldn’t tell where she started and he began. Everyone was wearing mask’s no one knew who any one was, and yet I still felt like everyone knew it was me behind the mask, like their glitter-framed eyes were still piercing through me.

I glanced over the crowed: a big wave of masked faces bobbing up and down in time with the music. There was one mask though that stayed motionless, a man in a gasmask stood in the middle of the room and seemed too just stare at me. Don’t be stupid he isn’t staring at you, you can’t tell were he’s looking with that mask on.