Page 36 - WTP Vol. X #5

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
is a story by Edgar Allan Poe, the dude with super- sad eyes. But I spell ‘mask’ plain, like the M-A-S-K that I wore on my last bike ride. Plain black. My story, like E.A. Poe’s, is set in Plague Times. Set, you know, now. Write a Story inspired by one of the classic stories we discussed in class. Only we didn’t discuss them ‘in class.’ Our classes since April were all Zoom, like everything now. But whatever. Here is my story, inspired by The Masque of the Red Death.
(BTW, I guess I should delete this part leading into the story. But maybe I won’t. Maybe I just don’t care if you pass me or not in this last Incomplete; if I ever officially graduate Arlington High School. No mat- ter what, I’m still a member of the doomed Covid-19 Class of 2020.)
My story starts in Grandad’s garden, behind what he called his “twilight-blue bungalow.” ln pre-twilight, which he called The Golden Hour. The time that ev- eryone looks their best. In sunny September of 2019 Grandad cut peach-colored roses to give 17-year-old me in a prickly bouquet. Peace Roses, he said. Then Grandad told me, matter-of-fact, You’ll be a beauty one day.
You—I mean ‘me’ but I like saying ‘you,’ because it makes this story about someone not-me—you al- ways felt pretty in that garden in the sunset-y light. You and Grandad, both bathed in gold. You held the peachy Peace Roses; Grandad brought out his seri- ous camera. The one he’d used in his Boston Portrait Studio. He took your picture, over and over. One came out so cool with your long hair lit up all tawny gold, you used it as your first/maybe-last Tinder photo—
~
(Boy, I’m getting off track from the assignment here, but I want to show why E.A.P.’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ made me cry. Which almost nothing does anymore, since I got all cried-out back in April. I wish to God, like Grandad used to say, I was not writing this story.)
FWIW: You never really used Tinder but you did put your Golden Hour photo up there and scrolled the faces sometimes with your then-BFFs, ha. Ex-BFFs, since Break. To be fair, you all made the Spring Break
plan together, the way you did everything, like work- ing together last summer at Chilly Cow Ice Cream on Mass. Ave in Arlington, Massachusetts: 100 flavors, ice cream in every color. Grandad said you’d be artis- tic like him because of your love of colors. You often dressed in peachy golds, like Peach-E Keen ice cream. Which you gorged on, gaining five pounds by August. Losing that weight by Fall counted as a crisis to you. The ex-you.
FWIW2: After that summer, at the start of your Se- nior year in September, 2019, you came back to school with your best-ever tan and your sun-high- lighted hair from weekend days at Singing Sands Beach. You knew you looked good, girl. Knew it when you sashayed down the school halls in one Girl Herd; knew it when Grandad took that golden-lit honey- haired garden photo in late September. Way better than your official Senior Portrait. You’ll be a beauty one day.
Only: one day will never come. Not for Grandad— who is never seen in our family’s best photos be- cause he’s taking them. Not for you—because you’ll never look at your face after April 8, 2020 and see beauty. Yeah, maybe you’ll see a pretty, made-up face, but it’s a mask. As Grandad used to say, Beauty is more than skin-deep. Peel back your skin, you’d find all black.
Like the cloth face-mask you pulled on, slipping out of the house on the first Sunday of June, 2020, for what you told your zoned-out Mom was just one more bike ride. One dumb decision, is how Mom and your school counselor said you should look at the whole Spring Break thing. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, especially not Grandad. Not
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The Mask of Red Death
elizaBeth Searle