Red ✔

Masking Up My Feelings

The man with the white mask and I are walking on the beach barefoot. I still have not figured out who he really is, but he is the only man that made me happy...and he is not even real. The sand is soft underneath my feet, I want to crunch it with my toes. The sun is about to set in the orange-purplish horizon. Seagulls squeal in excitement as they find the scrap beside the garbage can. The waves wash up on the beach and slowly slide off. It makes a cool rhythm as it repeats repeatedly. The bongo drummers play under the shade of the umbrellas. The music rings in my ears. I shuffle to the beat. It is such enchanted music. It makes me feel like I am dreaming within this dream.  The tall palm trees rests on the sides of the beach. They has a big round coconuts planted on the leaves.​  

The Mask Man takes my arms and sways with me. “I guess you can dance now.” I cannot his face clearly from the bright sun gleams on his face.

I try squinting to see clearly, but it is still as dark as ever, but instead I nod cheerfully. I dance some more. I twirl him and do the twist. I hop around as if I am high. I laugh. This is too much fun!

“Aren’t you having fun?” I ask him.

“Of course I am,” his voice suddenly turns whisper-y.

​He turns his head at me wiht concentrated wrinkle in his lower face, where his mask does not cover.  It really hard to get a read on him as he is wearing a mask, blocking his upper face. His hands go on top of his mask and they slowly detach his mask. I see his face clearly. Distinctly, I can see Clive’s features, but he is more hideous in some aspects.  He has a few scratch marks on his forehead. His nose is a little crooked. Did he always have that? His eyebrows are jagged and pointed like it is a large unibrow. However, some of his features are flawless, like his eyes that always made me mesmerized and his full, pink lips. Clive looks like what he is on the inside.  His smirk gives me the typical shivers down my spine.  I do not want to look at him anymore. I try to turn away, but something is stopping me. I realized his hands are latched on my arms.

“Let me go!” I yell. “Help! Someone help me!”

No one helps me.  They cannot hear me.  Clive is doing somehting to block any sound from to come out from my throat. The civilians are doing their own thing. I do not exist to them.

“They cannot hear you,” he says as if he read my mind. His teal blue eyes glimmer of danger.

The skies suddenly turns black. A tornado drops from the sky and swallows everything in its way. It removes the palm trees, bongo drummers, sand, and ocean. I can only feel a rock floor beneath me. I do not feel the crunch the floor anymore. Now, all I can hear is the whirling wind of the tornado circling us. He does not seem bothered by it, but I am screaming at the top of my lungs. He acts like he cannot hear me. I squirm in his grasp.

I finally find my voice. “What are you doing?”

“I love you!” he shouts at me. “I have always loved you.”

I attempt to slap him, but he is holding me way too tightly. “No, you do not!”

“And you love me, too,” he beams.  

That boy…That arrogant, arrogant boy. “I do not love you!” I argue angrily.

The ground is shaking and the ground cracks before me. The rock floor splits into two. I almost fall to my doom until he grabs my arm.

“I will do anything for the one I love,” he sneers. “And I know you cannot resist me.” He leans in to kiss me and I head butt him. He scowls out in pain.