Black Masquerade

Early September

Posters. Posters everywhere. They swarm the library lawn like ants protect their homes. They fly in the wind like a black and white hoard of bees. A particular poster catches my eye. This one, unlike the rest, is printed with red ink. I reach for it, but it flies away before I can grab it, and it disappears into rolling, darkening clouds.

AU's campus is alive, the students' energy and chatter buzzing as the wings of a thousand insects do. I overhear conversations in the common area, little pieces of things that don't make sense until you put them all together.

Things like, "Did you hear—?" "Guess what I found out—!" "No way; really???" "Yes!" "Her!" "---Coming to AU?" "Yeah, in April—." "---Students get in free?" "---Can't believe we're this lucky!" "Ivanna? Really?!?" "---not the only one. I heard—" "---just announced last night—"

Now I understand.

Although my music taste leans more towards 2000's pop (both English and Spanish pop is amazing), I'd have to live under a rock to not hear of Ivanna Elliot. The lead singer of a modern rock band, Ivanna Elliot seemingly sprang up overnight and rose to the top of the charts. Back in high school, nearly everyone was listening to her. I could hear the shredding guitars and feel the crashing of the drums through my classmate's airpods, even if they were standing a few feet away. I listened to one of her songs, "Crusade of the Darkness," and liked it, but the rest of them sucked. Still, it was almost funny to see how quickly she had taken over Spotify, TikTok, and even conspiracy youtubers, who claimed she must have sold her soul to the devil for her fame. What a load of BS.

I type Ivanna Elliott's name into my phone, and tons of news articles explode in my face. It seems she really is performing here, on campus, in April, and students get in free. I wonder where they'll host the concert. Considering that the auditorium is too small for the entire school population, my guess is football stadium. I hope the concert will be quiet enough to allow me to sleep peacefully in my off-campus apartment, but I doubt it will be.

Heading home, I push the button in my car to scan through the radio stations. There's a few in Spanish, a few in English, and one in Chinese. Some are playing music; some are playing sports; some are playing ads. Almost all of them mention Ivanna Elliott at least once. It reminds me of that creepy video of all the newscasters where the words of reporters all over the country are spoken in sync. It's like a superorganism. It's like a scripted hive of bees. Each one is part of something bigger than itself, and this entity gains qualities that don't exist in any of the individuals.

---

Kathleen's lying on her stomach on the bottom bunk doing her nails. She does the whole process herself: gluing on the fake nails, cutting them, mixing up the powders and liquids, painting them, and letting them set under a UV light. Her nails are bright green this time, and she's kept her unusual style of cutting a few of them short and leaving the rest long. 

I've asked her why she does this.

She answered, "It's useful," with a smile on her face, but I still don't see how.

"Have you heard the news?" I ask, becoming a parrot like the other parrots before me.

"What news?" she responds, brushing some acrylic onto her nail.

"Ivanna Elliot's coming to AU this spring. Apparently it's very weird because one, she's not on tour, and two, she lives in Maine," I say.

"Isn't she alumni?" Kathleen says.

"Oh. That would explain it," I say.

"Well? Are you going?" I ask. 

This seems more her type of music. She looks at me. Her eyeliner is full of wings: one on each corner of the eye flowing inward, five following the curves of the lower lash lines, and one spike in the middle of the bottom lash lines pointing all the way to the top of her cheeks. She looks like a little China doll.