Behind the Mask

Behind the mask we show the world, we lose ourselves.

Laurie had always been a perceptive child. Her first word had been "hi" followed quickly by "why?" She wanted to know what made the wonderful world around her tick. Strangers then family and friends eventually became annoyed by the questions.

So, the little girl curbed her curiosity, lost her inquisitive nature. She learned how to close her mouth and observe rather than ask so many questions.

Laurie's mother taught her to read before she ever went to school. While other kids were learning to write their name, reciting their alphabets, and counting to 20 that first year, Laurie was reading Goosebumps and doing arithmetic.

The teachers would ask, "Alright class, who can help me answer this question?". Laurie always raised her hand. She loved learning new things and loved the validation of being right.

The other students grew to resent her though. They called her names like "know-it-all" and ostracized her for being "too weird". No one wanted to play with her at recess so she would climb to the highest point of the playground.

Up there, she could watch and listen, find out what drove the children around her. Maybe if she acted more like them, they would like her more. It scared her teachers who would yell at her to come down, but she wouldn't. It was one of the only acts of disobedience she would commit in school.

Laurie stopped raising her hand in class. She couldn't bring herself to deliberately do bad on classwork, but she asked her teachers not to display her work. She lost the pride she had felt in what she was able to do.

Bit by bit, year by year, Laurie built a mask. She learned to smile even when she felt like crying. She learned to lie with believability. She realized she could never be in a deep relationship this way but experience had shown that no one wanted a relationship with the real her...and something was better nothing.

She smoothed over rough edges, the parts of herself that she thought people wouldn't like. But as Laurie molded herself into what she thought others wanted her to be, she lost the things that made her unique little Laurie.

Then came The Man. Like her, he was incredibly smart and just as weird. Unlike her, he was unapologetic about it, refused to hide as she did. He didn't fit in, but he didn't care. She tried to drop the mask for at last, she had found someone who might just love her for her. She couldn't. After years of burying and hiding herself away, there was no Laurie to be found.

"I am lost," she whispers, looking into the mirror. She does not recognize who stares back.

*Written for an offsite challenge: flash fiction about being lost.