Mask Stories
Stories inspired by the paintings of Don Michael, Jr.
The Perfect Hiding Place (2 of 2)
by David Michael
3
“Should we rob them now?” Kelsey had asked as she and Mattney watched the U-Haul truck drive away. “Or wait until they’ve unpacked?” She had been reclining on the rattan lounge chair her mom had decided, after much rearranging and indecision, really “set off” the front porch. Kelsey wasn’t sure she agreed with Mom about the furniture arrangement, but the chair did give her a great way to “set off” her legs that Mattney always appreciated.
Mattney, leaning against the bricks on her left so he had a good view of her legs, had laughed, and said, “Let’s give them a couple weeks to settle in. Then we can welcome them to the neighborhood.”
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The Perfect Hiding Place (1 of 2)
by David Michael
1
Christian shoveled Corn Pops into his mouth, ignoring his younger brother Tyler’s repeated-every-morning-at-the-breakfast-table monologue about how he, Tyler, had actually woke up before anyone else in the house, but only just now got up. At the same time he always did. After everyone else. But Christian was no longer allowed to point that out. Mom would jump his case if he said anything. He was supposed to let his 8-year-old brother ramble on saying the same pointless thing every morning. So, to avoid saying anything at all, he pushed Corn Pops into his mouth until no more would fit. Then he started crunching to drown out Tyler’s voice.
“Christian,” Mom said, “don’t put so much food in your mouth.”
Tyler paused in his monologue and focused his small, blue-gray eyes on his older brother. Then he started scooping his oatmeal into his mouth until his cheeks bulged. When he started to chew, his lips failed to contain it all and oatmeal gushed out onto the table and down Tyler’s shirt.
Curtain Call
By David Michael
The first and last performance of the White Hot Hemisphere Community Theater Company’s production of Hamlet closed to thunderous applause. Those in the audience who had been able to sit down through the play now stood up to give a standing, or at least upright, ovation. The ones with multiple appendages clapped their hands, grippers and/or manipulators. The rest enthusiastically stomped feet, revved tread motors in neutral, or banged their single arm or extender against the walls, the floor or the chairs, berths or docking stations in front of them.
Those of us on stage who still had ears or other sonic receivers could just hear the tumult over the rushing, roaring sound of the winds outside the theater. The rest of the players had to satisfy themselves with assuming that the vibrations they felt through the metal stage were from the appreciation of the audience.
Sweet Tooth (formerly “Who Doesn’t Like Donuts?”)
By David Michael
As Ted Millet pulled into the dark, not-as-empty-as-usual parking lot of the aging strip mall, threaded his way through the pot holes, and parked his Ford Focus-On-The-Fact-That-It’s-Not-A-Pinto in his normal space, he knew he was lying to himself. He just couldn’t decide what it was he was lying to himself about this time: his job, his life, or the huge, idling diesel semi-tractor trailer sans trailer parked in front of his donut shop.
Normally, at 2 in the morning, his was the only car. He had the strip mall to himself, making the first batches of glazed, cake, and old-fashioned donuts in near-perfect solitude. Not this morning, it seemed. He could feel the rumble of the massive diesel engine even here inside the enclosed cab of his Focus-On-Anything-But-How-Much-You-Hate-Your-Job, and a pit of fear opened up in his stomach.
Constellation (formerly “Mothers”)
By David Michael
From where she hung in the heavens, she could see everything. Which meant, most of the time, she saw nothing. In the day, under the glare of Apollo’s visage, she saw least of all, not even her own son next to her in the sky. The myriad tiny details of humanity below her, and those once human around her, were all subsumed in the radiance of the gods. Even at night, from such a high vantage point, the mass of humanity below her were visible only as collections of lanterns and cooking fires. She seldom noticed one person, just as most people, looking up, seldom saw more than the moon or the Milky Way.
Callisto (formerly “Huntress”)
By David Michael
She came out of the hut and the butt end of a spear hit her in the face. She had only an instant to see the two men, strangers, one of them holding her boys, Babi and Darto, pinning the boys’s arms, letting the boys’s shouts draw her out, the other with his spear held backwards, ramming it into her eye.
Enamored (formerly “Morning on the Network”)
By David Michael
Roxy awoke at exactly 06:36 to the Beatles’s “Good Day Sunshine” echoing in her head. She let John, Paul, George and Ringo be cheerful for her while she ignored the taste of stale toothpaste in her mouth and failed to resist the urge to stay in bed. The Skinny Bitch could do without her today. The downtrodden masses wouldn’t miss her–hell, they were the downtrodden masses–they were used to being cast aside and stepped on.
She had just pulled the blanket back up her chin, the Beatles singing in fading harmony as her implants registered her new agenda, when an IM lit up the back of her eyelids.
A Fine Mess (formerly “The World Wears Thin”)
By David Michael
When the breeze shifted, Kenneth looked up to see what it might be bringing his way, hoping some part of it might be edible. The air around him as he walked had been full of yellow and brown Strings, the Frayed remains of what he thought might have been scrub grass–or something equally unnourishing and unpleasant when inhaled–whatever value it had once had long since scavenged by the remaining birds and rodents. He was supposed to be the best gatherer in town, but today he had found next to nothing, just a few thin Strings that had only made him hungrier.
Indian Summer (formerly “Falling Leaves”)
By David Michael
For the first time since Ally’s funeral, the sun rose golden in a clear blue sky, and Anna hated it. The gray clouds of November, the damp wind, and the sporadic rain of the previous two weeks had fit her personal gloom, and she wasn’t ready to give them up yet.
Summer Breeze (formerly “Gikamjarott Wants a Change”)
By David Michael
Jike leaned down to grab the next damned in the queue, but paused, looking over the shaven heads of the damned at the queue itself. The queue stretched like an immense snake of impending torment and misery literally into infinity. Jike sighed and shook his head. He’d been at work–it seemed like forever–and he would be here–that seemed like forever too. He needed a change.
Brain Freeze (formerly “The Mission”)
By David Michael
Crouched on all fours, eye nubs just over the edge of the curb, Boollf watched–and hoped. His ear bones vibrated with the sound of the low churning, the sirens’s song, the goal of the mission. His muscles twitched and his tongue flicked in anticipation. He could feel a similar tension up and down the line. Everyone could hear it. Tonight for sure–
Movement along the line, one of his crew–Grennf, probably–jumping up to the curb without the word. Boollf’s right eye rotated and he could see it was indeed the idiot Grennf already creeping along the concrete surface toward the big glass doors where the man Jeremy had pushed the woman Jessie. Behind Grennf, other eye nubs appeared over the edge of the curb, and tentative finger pads, wanting to follow. Stupid newbie wogs.
Until Death Do Us Part (formerly “‘Til When Did You Say?”)
By David Michael
Ross’s memory was fine, and his eyesight and hearing were still in working order, at least on the right side. It was his sleeping that the long years had robbed him of. He used to be able to fool himself and lay abed for the recommended eight hours even if he wasn’t so much sleeping as zoning out, meditating on the back of his eye lids while Marjorie puttered about the house in her morning rituals. Now, though, he didn’t have the patience. Even if he had gone to bed less than a few hours before. When the sun came up, when Marjorie started her morning ritual–especially when Marjorie started her morning ritual–he couldn’t even pretend to sleep.