Oh Masks We Wear

Alaena HaiLing

        

         "But how will I know who is supposed to get which one?”

         “Seriously, Teacher, we’ve already gone over this,” the Secretary sighed, fighting to hold back his exasperation in the most obvious manner he could manage. “When the kids come in they will tell you their numbers and you just give them the mask with their number on the tag, see?” He held up one of the many plastic masks from the open box by his feet. “It’s not your job to decide who gets which one.”

         “But what if we give them the wrong ones?” the Teacher asked, wringing her hands. The Secretary rolled his eyes behind the eyeholes of his own mask.

         “That’s not the point here. And besides, we can’t get it wrong. The designations were all made by the Watchers and they’re never wrong. It’s their job to assign masks, after all.”

         The Teacher shifted her weight from side to side in an unconscious expression of nervousness as she looked out over her new class. Her eyes flickered over the myriad of faces arrayed before her. There were five Jokers, seven Quiets, two Lazy Ones, four Gossips, one Genius, and three Bullies. The Bullies worried her. She had heard from other Teachers that having more than one Bully was always a sign of a bad year, and this was her first. Drawing in a deep breath to calm herself down, she opened her mouth to address the class, but she cut herself off as she caught sight of one of the Quiets.

         “You—” She fumbled for a moment, uncertain of how to address the girl, but memories of her own school days flooded back into her mind and the words flew from her mouth. “The female Quiet in the corner, what are you doing?”

         The Quiet stopped fingering the edge of her mask, turning her mild, plastic face to the front of the room. “This thing is too uncomfortable! I was gonna take it off.”

         “You can’t,” the Teacher said hurriedly. “From now on you aren’t ever supposed to take off your mask.”

         “But why not?” the Quiet demanded, folding her arms on top of her desk as the rest of the class watched on with interest. Curious murmurs rose from the others as well and the Teacher felt a sudden rush of panic. Confused, she gave herself a hard shake. She was a Teacher and they were her students. They were supposed to ask her questions, right?

         But she is a Quiet, her mind reminded her as her unease mounted. She’s not supposed to be the one asking questions.

         “It’s the rules,” she replied finally.

         “But why?” the Quiet demanded again, her voice rising in volume.

         “It…it…” She looked down at the desk before her. There was a stack of papers in the corner, each with a mask type printed neatly at the top. She picked them up and shuffled through them so that her hands would have something to do.

         “Well, everyone is supposed to have a role to play, you know, so that society can work,” she explained when the silence grew uncomfortable. “Back before the Mask Role Laws were passed the world was a really confusing place.” The words were ones she had been told to memorize before taking up her position as a Teacher and they flowed from her now like water from a leaky faucet. “People didn’t know what they were supposed to be and everyone spent so much time trying to figure that out that they wasted away their entire lives. On top of that, people never knew how to interact with other people because it was too hard to figure out what other people were like and how they should be treated. The Mask Role Laws were passed so that everyone would know exactly what they were supposed to act like and how other people would act. It made things run much more smoothly.”

         “Now,” she continued before the Quiet—who was in desperate need of her role sheet—could say anything else, “read the instructions on these papers. They will explain everything about your role and personality.”

         Papers circulated around the room and the class fell silent as students read over their papers. Breathing a sigh of relief, the Teacher retreated behind her desk and sat down. Fifteen minutes later she was back on her feet and calling out that classes would now officially begin. She caught sight of a Bully tossing a paper airplane at the back of the Genius’s head out of the corner of her eyes and her nerves calmed. The Gossips were beginning to whisper to each other and one of the Lazy Ones let out a loud snore. This was how things were supposed to be.

         Smiling to herself, the Teacher turned back to face the class and cleared her throat. “For today, we will begin by going over some basic writing skills.”

         She saw with an internal sigh of gratitude that even the Quiet in the corner seemed to have understood what she was supposed to be and was now gazing silently out of the window.

         “So, any questions?”

         A month had passed since the beginning of the school year and things had been going smoothly. The Teacher was proud to say that she had managed to keep the Bullies from causing anyone any actual harm and that everyone seemed to be making progress both in becoming what they were designated to be and in their schoolwork. Well, the Lazy Ones hadn’t been doing all that well, but that was how it was supposed to be.

         “Does this mean we’re done?” one of the Jokers asked eagerly.

         She laughed and shook her head. “No. We still have to go over your essays.”

         “I have a question.”

         The voice was oddly familiar but she felt like she hadn’t heard it for a while. Scanning the room, her eyes fell on a Quiet sitting in the front row. She frowned. None of the Quiets had said anything since the beginning of the year—none except—

         Her eyes flicked to the back corner of the classroom on an impulse but there was a Quiet sitting there. Her eyes flew back to the speaker. That voice, it had to be the one who had wanted to take off her mask at the beginning of the year, but…was it? A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. Was this the same Quiet? How could she be sure? All the female Quiets wore female Quiet masks—they all looked exactly the same. But of course they did, that was the whole point.

         Calm down, she told herself sternly. It doesn’t matter if it’s the same Quiet or not.

         “Are there any more questions?”

         “I said I have one,” the same Quiet said again. Sighing, the Teacher turned her reluctant gaze to the girl in question.

         “Please see me after class,” she instructed before raising her voice again to address the entire class. “Please get out your essays and find a partner. I’ll pass out the peer editing sheets.”

         “Why did you speak out in class?”

         The Quiet glared back at her, angry eyes clashing in a rather disturbing way with her placid face. “Why wouldn’t you hear my question?”

         The Teacher allowed herself an exasperated sigh. It was the Bullies and the Jokers or even the Geniuses who were supposed to be difficult. The Quiets were the good students. “You are a Quiet. You aren’t supposed to ask questions in class. You’re supposed to listen and be…well, quiet.”

         “But I don’t want to be quiet!” the Quiet cried out, leaping to her feet. “And besides, who said I had to be a Quiet?”

         “The Watchers know all,” the Teacher replied automatically. “They decide. And besides, you won’t be just a Quiet forever. When you finish primary schooling they will give you one of the Quiets’ job masks and then you’ll go on and be useful to society. That’s how I knew I was supposed to be a teacher.”

         “But that isn’t fair.”

         The Teacher looked at her, puzzled. Why didn’t the girl understand? This was how the world worked now and it was a good system. There were always just the right number of every kind of person. “Is there something so wrong about being a Quiet? I know some wonderful people who started out as Quiets.”

         To her surprise, the Quiet’s shoulders slumped and she looked down at the ground. “I—I want to talk to people… None of the others will talk to me because I’m not supposed to like to talk. I—I want to laugh and to play and to get to know people like the others get to.”

         “Why don’t you talk to the other Quiets? Quiets get along with each other.”

         She was answered with a short, sharp laugh that stung her ears. “Because they’re quiet. Duh. You know what, never mind.” She turned away from the Teacher’s desk and headed for the door. “Just forget I said anything.”

         And she was gone, leaving the Teacher to stare after her in bewilderment. Something in her chest tightened. What happened?

         Pushing back her chair, the Teacher got to her feet and packed quickly. She needed to get out of the classroom. The air was starting to feel thick and there was a sour taste in her mouth. She needed to be home.

         The first thing—or rather the first person—she saw upon reaching the parking lot was the Principal. She greeted him because it was the polite thing to do and he nodded at her in return. They exchanged the required pleasantries and he asked her how she was doing. She told him she was fine and that classes were going well. He congratulated her and turned to leave. A strange impulse rose inside her as he turned his back and she found herself grasping his shoulder before she knew what her hand was doing. He turned to give her a startled look.

         “Yes?”

         “I…” She swallowed. Why had she done that? It was wrong. Teachers were not supposed to grab Principals’ shoulders. But her mouth was moving and words she hadn’t realized she had even thought were coming out of her mouth. “Can—can we change a student’s mask type? I mean, if it seems like it doesn’t fit?”

         To her astonishment the Principal burst out laughing. Withdrawing her hand from him like she had been burnt, the Teacher backed away a step. Why was he laughing? Had she said something funny? She didn’t feel like she had.

         “Go home and take a rest over the weekend, Teacher,” he said once his laughter had died down. “I’m sure you’ll feel back to normal by Monday.”

         With that he was off striding away to his car like nothing had happened.

         She stared up at her plain, white ceiling. She couldn’t see it in the dark but she didn’t want to look at the images dancing behind her eyelids.

         She had not dreamed in such a long time. She had always been one of those who could rest without fear of being haunted by strange figments of the mind that never helped anyone and often confused many. But today it had been different.

         She had been standing in the classroom. It had been dark but the entire class was there. They were all looking at her, waiting for her to start talking, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to say. And as she stared at their frozen faces and they stared back she realized with a start that there were no eyes behind their eyeholes.

         Her breath quickened at the memory and she clenched her fists beneath the blankets. She had been unable to move. Her feet were rooted to the ground and all she had been able to think was that she had to stand there—that that was her place and no matter how much she wanted to run she couldn’t. And there was something so incredibly horrible about that one thought. It had seeped into her bones and filled her lungs with lead. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was watch as the students stood one by one and walked towards her—the grinning Jokers and the smirking Bullies and all the rest of them. They had reached towards her, a chorus of voices crying out, “Teacher.”

         Turning over onto her side, the Teacher let her eyes rest on the curtains that hid the night sky from her view, wishing she had left them open earlier but too shaken to get up and open them.

         Their masks had shattered. She had expected to be horrified—to find the faceless darkness behind them that would swallow her whole, but instead…instead there had been light. It was a glorious, pure, white light. It had made her feel comforted…right—excited, even…

         And that was the most terrifying part of all.

         Monday morning came far too soon and in no time at all she was standing back at the front of the classroom. The students began to file in and she ordered herself to breathe in deeply and exhale slowly. They took their seats, watching her with expectant eyes. She looked back at them—and found that she couldn’t breathe again. They were the same—their grinning, scowling, bored, and placid faces were as blank as the plastic from which they were made, and she thought with a strange feeling like she was being strangled that she didn’t know them at all. It was how it was supposed to be, but then why did it feel so…so…

         Gritting her teeth, she slammed her planner down on the table and rounded the desk.

         “Take off your masks!”

         They stared at her. Absolute silence roared like thunder in her ears.

         “Take off your masks,” she said again, her voice rising in strength and intensity though half of her thought she might be screaming. On an impulse, she reached up and grasped the edge of her own mask. A moment later she had torn it away from her face and it was falling. It hit the ground with a soft clack.

         The students sat stunned. Then one of the Quiets stood up and ripped away her own mask. Looking at her young face with its high cheekbones and burning eyes, the Teacher felt a weight lifting away from her. Around them other masks were beginning to lift away from the faces—no, the people—trapped beneath them. Some were stunned, others giddy, still more simply confused, but Janet found that she didn’t care. The air felt brighter and she cleared her throat, staring her students in the eyes for what felt like the first time.

         “From now on we’re not going to wear the masks anymore,” she said, her voice clear and sharp. “Now.” She turned to the Quiet—the girl seated directly in front of her desk. “What’s your name?”

         There would probably be problems later when the rest of the school found out, but she would deal with that when it happened.

 

Copyright 2008, Alaena HaiLing

Cover: "The Appeal"

A memory is a haunting refrain that time cannot erase.

Copyright 2008, Marge Simon

Marge Ballif Simon freelances as a writer-poet-illustrator for genre and mainstream publications such as Strange Horizons, Flashquake, Story House, Vestal Review, Flash Me Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, Dreams & Nightmares, The Fortean Bureau, Flesh & Blood, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and the anthologies, High Fantastic and Nebula Anthology 32. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, "Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side." She is the editor of Star*Line, Digest of the SF Poetry Association.