Behind The Mask

Chapter 4

There was a jingle, and Ted walked in to Danny's Diner. There was a little bell chime strung above the doors that notified everyone whenever someone walked in. It got quite annoying, fast, especially during peak hours when there was a madcap scramble at the doors for people to buy lunch. Ding, ding, ding, ding. That was one of the things people hated the most about Danny's Diner. The other was that it always played jazz tunes. Jazz tunes. It wasn't even the good jazz musicians, either, just the small-time soloists who tried to go big but never made it to the stage. Doobeedoo bop.

This was his new job. He had been working here for two weeks now. He felt calm. Despite not having seen Lana for three weeks now, Ted knew she was safe. He had received a phone call from her a week ago, and she said everything was good and there was nothing to worry about, despite being jailed up, and she told him 'do what you have to do'. He wanted to tell her about what he had to do, but he held it in. He had been quite adept at suppressing his emotions recently. Perhaps that was a new skill he learnt.

Someone slapped him on the back. He got that a lot. Danny, presumably. He turned around, and lo and behold, it was Danny indeed.

"Ted! Early today, as usual, I see!" He grinned, "Eager to continue working, are we?"

Ted slumped his shoulders. "Uh, yeah, Danny, I guess I'm really excited. Yep."

Danny's expression twisted. "Oh, come on, Ted! At least try to sound excited."

"Yay," said Ted in a deadpan voice.

"Pish-tosh."

"Look, Danny, I'm sorry, I'm just really tired today, ok?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever, Ted, I got you. Totally."

"Then it's good, Danny...also," he said and headed towards the jukebox, "you need to start playing songs other than jazz tunes."

Danny laughed. It was a low hearty laugh, but it was honest. Ted wished more people were like that. It had been two weeks since the carbomb incident. Danny didn't pry too much into it, but he knew Ted didn't want to talk about it, and all that. People had grown quite wary about it, and several of them decided to stay away from the diner, since it might be a terrorist hotspot or something like that, what with the growing concern surrounding carbombs these days. The silence was interrupted by Danny sneezing, and rubbing his nose with a white speckled handkerchief. It made his nose itch even more, and he was promptly excused from the room.

Sigh.

Ted sat down at his desk, and got to work.

***

When he finished, he headed out to the local supermarket where he bought some pre-prepared food (was it just pre-pared food, or did it have to be pre-pre-pared, he always wondered), chips and drinks. Ted was hauling up for the long run, cause it was winter and when the snow storms hit (if they ever did), then he'd be ready. He bought a shovel, because you never know when you'll need a shovel to bury a body. Or um, shovel snow out of the way. It was weird, thinking about his other side - the side that Jupiter hid behind the mask. Sometimes he felt they were two completely different people, but they shared a link, and that was him. Was Jupiter the unseen side of him that came alive under the influence of the mask? Ted shuddered, and he didn't want to know.

He returned home, slumped onto the couch and grabbed a bag of chips. He tore it cleanly, folded it into a bowl, and began snacking as he watched the news. Apparently, cops had gotten word of a man who was locked in a trunk, and drowned in a lake. It had taken them 2 whole weeks to find that? Wow, Ted thought, the cops in this part of town really are inept.

He switched the channel, and ended up watching a documentary on monkeys. It was...informative, to say the least. Apparenly monkeys exhibited spontaneous outburts of brutality while angry, and they would offten aggravate each other to violent results. It was no surprise, then, that a group of them were called a 'troop', considering their nature. Other trivial facts, such as there being roughly 125 species of monkeys and the fact that monkeys eat spiders were also displayed, but that didn't interest Ted so much. It merely gave him a medium to focus his attention onto so he didn't have to worry about other things like his electrical bills.