The Mask of Alabaster Part One
Chapter 1: When the Clock Struck Twelve
When I was seventeen, I once gazed listlessly through my window upon the bleach of a winter sky, unnerved in my insomnia by the bony light of the moon. Many adore that wretched rock which orbits our planet; gaping in the rays of reflected sunlight many confuse for the moon’s own luminescence. My mother once remarked how “beautiful” the night looked and accredited the pleasance of twilight to the moonlight. I scoffed. “Moonlight,” I thought to myself in disgust, “That is an oxymoron.” I never bothered myself much in wondering why my mother regarded the moon as an admirable treasure; she was a moron. But why many of the very species I share commonality with find delight in such a lurid sphere I do not know.
On that restless night I listened to the sounds of my childhood home. It was the New Year, although nothing seemed new about it, as my parents were still drunk. Attempting to ignore the clamor of inebriation rattling the lower half of my parents’ colonial house, I peered through the windowpanes to at least save my attention from my parents’ grasp. “Go on without me,” I begged, urging my body to release my mind from the tyranny of captivity. As my eyes saw what slumbered beyond the window I sunk back into my fleshy shell of fluid and skin, remembering my disdain for not only the moon but also for the frigid air of winter.
Three weeks prior to that night my mother had been dragging me to yet another piano lesson. She called my instructor Ms. Ivonov, but I knew her by her true identity as the Crypt Keeper. Ms. Ivonov’s age had reached so beyond the expiration date that I told her I was calling Russia to demand a refund, to which she responded, “throw that one out, then, and grab the gallon on the second shelf, you’ll find the Kahlua in the Lazy-Susan, chebok.”
“How am I going to learn to play piano from a woman who can neither see nor remember that the Cold War has ended?” I snapped at my mother. “Bite your tongue” she would habitually hiss in response, “Lady Ivonov learned from Rachmaninov himself!” Ms. Ivonov and I did share one commonality: each of us learned piano from a corpse.
The collective craze of yuletide idiocy was heavy in the suburban air, itching my mother with the sudden urge to force me to learn the song Winter Wonderland, as I was “showcasing” at the yearly Christmas mass. I thought to myself what this woman’s obsession was with the oxymoron; the only “Wonderland” during winter is when I peer out my window to gaze upon the crunchy snow below, wondering if I could land with enough force.
The clock struck twelve and the New Year had finally arrived, as well as a new pungent and skunky smell that informed my nostrils that my parents were still high. As I laid in my bed, nestled comfortably in the uppity suburban Western Massachusetts town, the gloom of winter twilight slithered through my window. The discontent of failing to slip into slumber was quickly replaced with the dread of falling into the grasp of those shadow tendrils projected from an elm tree outside my bedroom, binding my mind with my own imagination. Suddenly I am aware of how far away the morning sun is, hanging in my view like a juicy tenderloin strung out of my grasp by Pavlov himself.
Sitting up in reaction to what I first misinterpreted as frustration towards my insomnia, I gleamed out my window to distract myself from the gloomy obscurity of my shady walls. The moonlight was hardly salvation, for whether by illusion of refracted moonlight, or the imaginative folly of my tired mind, I cannot say, but between those dead branches that haunted my walls was a silvery hovering face. The human mind is a rather powerful and creative organ but I cannot confidently convince myself that this floating alabaster mask truly manifested from fantasy.
I shall not soon forget those high pointed cheekbones exaggerated by the spectral conflict between his pale façade and the dark winter night. His eyes were so focused on mine I began to mistake them for my own. But that comforting relief of realization when, during those transient blights of mistaking tedious objects for horrifying shapes, the fault in their sight becomes understood. One of the most terrifying places for many people does seem to be the corner of their eye.
On most nights a simple shift in my view would reveal the perpetrator of such an image; perhaps a neighbor’s porch-light was tricking me into transforming a bird’s nest or entwined pair of branches into a gaunt face. I tilted my head, chose a different pane to peer through, yet no matter how much I changed my position or the lens through which I viewed, that hovering mask retained its shape. Its eyes even looked away from mine, invalidating the conclusion that they were mine.
Horror began to melt over my head and trickle down my spine, branching off into my benumbing limbs. The drunken and stoned sounds that screamed from downstairs dissipated. Although I could make out the usual shapes of my bedroom, I felt like I was no longer home. Darkness began to collapse and prevail over me, and the only light I could make out was the albedo of the albino face that winced at me from beyond my window. “What is this place” I muttered inside my head.
To be continued.
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