All Mask, No Face: Chapter 2 – Uncaring Emptiness

Chapter 2 – Uncaring Emptiness

A hard day’s work passes for Dario until he enters the theatre, which he almost forgets to look forward to. He enters it just as he sits down on a chair to catch his breath and finds himself sitting on the floor.

“Ow! You could’ve made that transition easier so I wouldn’t slam my butt down on the floor,” Dario says to me.

“I need you in a particular mood for the next person you’ll see. Her name is Adelina and she needs some cheering up from her miserable and tired state,” I say before taking Dario to her stage. “Please be patient with her.”

“I will,” Dario says.

When he enters Adelina’s room, he finds that her stage is colored in various shades of grey with not much around her. She sits in the middle of the room looking down and humming herself a song. Her appearance is a disjointed one, not one part of it is normal because it is nothing but a series of grey lines with spikes on her shoulders and a shriveling grey thing in the center that must be her heart. The mask on her face covers most of it except for the side of it and her black hair. As for the design of her mask, it’s plain just as she is with four bits of hair on it and a strangely content look on its face.

Going up to her, Dario says, “You must be Adelina. How are you doing?”

“Fine, and you?” she says.

“A bit tired from all the work I did today, but good.” A deafening silence in the room fills the room as Dario is unsure of how to continue and is put off guard by how strange this all is, even by the theatre’s standards. “What troubles you?”

“Nothing does. I’m perfectly fine as I am.”

“You wouldn’t be here if that was the case.”

“I know. I’ve been here many times before and heard from many people like you.”

“People are brought here more than once if they need more help.”

“Or if that Stage Master wants you to be here. It’s not like we have a choice.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that we are brought here. I got a lot of help from him and am enjoying helping others like you.”

“If you say so. Maybe the reason why so many are brought here time and time again is because the help doesn’t truly work. I mean, in the real world, no one remembers the theatre, and most that do just remember it as a dream. If it were more important, it’d be remembered and more people would be actively searching it out.”

Dario thinks about Adelina’s words and back on his conversation with Carlo and how Carlo still thinks that the theatre was a dream. To Carlo, they’re only collaborating because he believes that dreams tell you a lot about reality and what you should be doing.

“I make a lot of the same mistakes,” Dario admits. “Back at the charity I work at, I sometimes put stock in the wrong area, bring the wrong stuff to a person, or tell someone to deal with a difficult patient that I don’t want to bother with. Even now, I have to remember that not everyone is perfect and we can be made better through trial and error.”

“I get it,” Adelina coldly says.

“Can you tell me why you keep coming back here?”

“I don’t know why. There’s nothing wrong with me. All I do is keep to myself and not bother anyone.”

“There has to be more to it than that.”

“There isn’t. I don’t care to be in anyone’s business nor do I care about myself.”

“That’s it then. Your uncaringness towards yourself and others.”

“What’s so wrong about it? I don’t bother anyone.”

Images of Adelina flicker on the walls around them, showing her being distant towards others and secluding herself.

“Seclusion isn’t good for you.”

“Why isn’t it? No one is hurt by it.”

“You are and the people who you could help by being around them.”

“No, that’s not true and I told you I’m fine.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

Now, videos of Adelina show her longingly and jealously looking at gatherings of people.

“I wish I could be like them,” she says in the videos. “This is fine. Why can’t I make any friends? Who cares? I don’t care. They aren’t good people anyway. I’m not that interesting of a person. I couldn’t be friends with them. Life is stressful enough alone. Keeping up with family on holidays and special events is all I need. There are more important things to do.”

“I care, Adelina,” Dario says to break up the constant noise.

“I’ve heard that many times before and nothing has come of it.”

“Today, that changes. Can I see your real face? Your mask hides too much of it.”

“Sure, if you can.”

Dario slightly moves aside Adelina’s mask to reveal that there’s only the outline of a face on hers with no features to it, which shocks him a bit.

“There’s nothing to me. Nothing special or worth getting invested in,” Adelina says.

“That’s not true. You just need to find yourself.”

“It is true!” the mischievous lighting technician says as he pops out of Adelina’s head. “There’s hardly anything in here!”

Dario swipes away at the technician as the man pops in and out of Adelina like a game of whack-a-mole while saying, “Don’t listen to him! Everyone feels like a blank slate, at first.”

“I’m not a blank slate. I know my purpose in life, and that’s just to work, eat, and sleep alone until the day I die. That’s all I’m worth and I’ll ever be.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. There’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. I’ve already heard how things could always get better and there’s joy to be found in the mundane, but neither answer has brought me peace. It’s never brought me out of the loneliness I find myself in.”

“I’ll be your friend,” Dario says with a hand on Adelina’s shoulder.

She looks to the side and thinks to herself as if the concept of a friend is foreign to her.

“How can you be? After we leave here, we’ll be far apart.”

“Where do you live?”

Adelina tells Dario the city she lives in, a city that so happens to be the same one he is in as well. They exchange addresses and realize they only live two blocks away from one another.

“I’ll take the time to visit you. We’ll talk and I’ll help you become the person you’re meant to be,” Dario confidently says.

Adelina smiles for the first time in what feels like years to her before frowning again.

“When do you want to see each other? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? I’ve tried making arrangements to be with others, but they always ghost me in the end. Prove to me that you want to help me by seeing me sooner rather than later.”

“Okay. How about tonight? My parents should be making dinner now and it’ll be ready by the time I meet you at your house.”

“Ah…um…”

“This is proof that I want to help you, isn’t it?”

“It is. Um…okay. I’ll see you soon then.”

Dario blinks and sees that he’s back home. He immediately gets up and tells his parents that a friend in need is coming over for dinner and he’s going to walk her over.

“Who’s coming over?” his mom asks.

“A girl named Adelina. We just met,” Dario says.

“Oh, if that’s the case, well get dinner ready as soon as possible. We have to make a good first impression,” Dario’s dad says.

Dario rolls his eyes at the implication that his dad thinks he may fall in love with Adelina and walks out the door. When he gets to Adelina’s apartment, he rings the doorbell and doesn’t have to wait long for her to answer her. The sight of her is a bit surprising to Dario, and not, at the same time. She has a disheveled appearance that suggests she was rushing to do her best to hide her many imperfections such as her messy hair and sunken eyes. It’s also apparent that she’s about Dario’s age and hasn’t showered for days since she smells like perfume and the stink of work. Adelina is also blocking the door and shifting around to hide the mess that is her home.

“Um, hi, Dario. I’m glad you actually came,” she awkwardly says.

“The pleasure is mine. Are you ready to go?” Dario asks.

“Ye-yeah. Let’s.”

Adelina walks with Dario back to his house where they enjoy a nice together with Dario’s parents. For the next week, Dario makes time to see Adelina to help her find herself and enjoyment in life. To his surprise, he doesn’t enter the theatre during any of the days, but the most surprising thing he finds is that Adelina enjoys helping people at the charity with him, especially caring for the sick and homeless. At one moment, she catches him smiling at him.

“What?” she shyly asks.

“Nothing. I’m just happy to see you smiling and happy,” he says, making her smile even more and blush.

By the end of the last day on Saturday when Dario is walking Adelina home, he says, “It looks like I’ve finally managed to get you to change for the better.”

“Yeah, but this doesn’t mean that we’ll stop seeing each other, right?” Adelina asks.

“No, of course not. You’re welcome to work with my family and me at the charity full-time if you want.”

“That’s good. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Adelina hugs and then kisses Dario on the cheek. “Thank you for everything. See you tomorrow.”

Adelina then walks into her apartment while leaving Dario stunned and blushing. His shocked and blushed expression is stuck on his face even as he arrives back home and tries to hide it. Seeing him all red makes his parents ask what happened, and when he tells them, they’re excited that he has a new girlfriend. Even though he denies it, Dario wonders if Adelina kissed him just because he’s been such a big help to her or if she actually does love him and he also begins wondering why he feels like he wants her to love him.