All Mask, No Face: Chapter 3 – Parroting for Comfort

Chapter 3 – Parroting for Comfort

With their new hire and potential daughter-in-law, Dario’s parents make it a point to have them working together so they can grow closer. Just as Adelina gives Dario a good morning hug, he is transported to the theatre he’s almost forgotten about.

“I was wondering if I ever was going to come back here,” Dario says to me.

“This isn’t a nine-to-five. You’ll be back here when you’re needed and since Adelina needed so much time with you, you needed to stay with her,” I say.

“Can you tell me if she’s the one who’s meant to be my girlfriend and wife-to-be?”

“What does your heart say?” Dario searches for the answer within himself as I fly him to the stage he’s meant to be on today. “You’ll be helping two people today, both of which have the same problem of being too worldly. They feed off each other’s ignorance as an excuse to keep acting as they do.”

“Wait, what?”

“The man’s name is Renzo and the woman’s name is Delia. You can handle them, Dario.”

Before Dario can say another word, he is thrust into the room where the two people are. Their stage consists of a place full of every popular item, movie, game, show, and sayings of the times all of which fade away and keep being replaced by new things. Renzo has a fiery orange and black mask that has red eyes with a silly expression on its face that covers half his face. He has blue eyes, short black hair, and most of his body is missing. As for Delia, she has green eyes, black hair, and most of her body is missing as well. Her mask that covers half of her face is upside down and is trying to hold back her tears while smiling with both mouths.

The two are going from place to place on their stage like children in a candy shop with a sugar rush, trying out every new trend until it goes sour, and then being invested in another. Every face attached to an advertisement and person they see is a variation of the mischievous lighting technician who keeps shifting his face with the trends, and at one point, has two faces at once to talk to Renzo and Delia at the same time.

“Stop all this noise and flashing lights! It’s giving me a headache,” Dario says to the technician.

“Haha! Why should I? These are the sights and sounds of the world! Better keep up or you’ll be left behind,” the technician says.

Seeing that he has no luck with the technician, Dario walks up the wall to Renzo.

“Renzo! Don’t you think this is all too much?” Dario asks.

“How can it be? This is amazing!” Renzo says before getting into an orange sports car and driving off.

The floor of Renzo’s stage becomes like that of a treadmill as Dario runs on it to keep up with him.

“You’ll get tired of following the times and eventually fall behind!” Dario says.

“Nah, not me. My followers and coworkers keep me up to date with everything that’s going on in the world,” Renzo says and then moves on to running on a literal treadmill in a gym with various political news outlets reporting on the goings on and telling people what they should think.

“It’s not right to change your beliefs every year or so because of today’s politics. Shouldn’t you believe in something more solid and unchanging?”

“That’s for people who are too stringent and dogmatic. Nothing is true and right can become wrong given the circumstances. That’s what I believe.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Again, Renzo’s stage changes and Dario finds himself on the ceiling skydiving from it. Several TVs are falling along with him each of which shows static screens of Renzo making apology videos only to go back and do what he apologized for, ganging up on people for their beliefs, and hitting close friends and family of his over disagreements while he was drunk.

“You’ll come crashing down eventually. No celebrity stays a star for long,” Dario says.

“If I’m going to crash, it’s going to be in a blaze of glory baby! Woah!” Renzo says as he plummets towards the ground.

Both Renzo and Dario crash to the floor, however, neither is hurt, especially Renzo who immediately gets up and races toward the halls of a loud sports stadium. Tired from having to deal with him, Dario shifts his attention toward Delia who is drinking at the bar in a casino with illusions of her friends, all of which have the distorted face of the mischievous lighting technician.

Dario catches his breath and then says, “Delia-”

“Who are you? Another admirer?” she asks in a pompous tone.

“A what? No, I’m not.”

“Then you’re not worth my time.”

Dozens of people start crowding around Delia as everything starts becoming nothing more than migraine-inducing lights and noise. Dario stumbles back onto a large slot machine that starts running and forces him to run on it until he falls forward and is flung into a river of alcohol that leads to a whirlpool that he is sucked into. He then falls into a dark void filled with scenes of Delia’s streams such as her gambling, shopping, and trauma dump streams. By the time he reaches the bottom, his ears are ringing and he doesn’t hear much until he sees Delia crying by herself in the dark.

“No, please pay attention to me. I need to see your compliments, be the center of your attention, and hear about my struggles. Don’t leave me alone,” Delia says while tapping at her phone and computer.

Dario walks to her with a hand reached out and says, “Delia, you don’t need everyone’s love and attention. Please stop working, partying, and streaming so much. Give it a break and enjoy the quiet.”

As Dario reaches Delia, spotlights from above come on, and the constant chatter resumes.

“She needs all the light and attention she deserves! She’s a hard worker after all!” the mischievous lighting technician says.

“Don’t listen to this kid, Delia,” Renzo says as he pushes Dario aside and hugs Delia. Now that they’re together, Dario sees that the colorful strings that comprise both of their bodies are colors that the other has.

“You’re right, Renzo. Let’s go have fun while we’re still young and rich,” Delia says.

“Wait! You can’t keep being so irresponsible with your lives! It’s not going to end well,” Dario says before Renzo throws a pamphlet at his face.

Looking at it, Dario sees that it’s one of Carlo’s old pamphlets that has tips on living a consistently happy life. He stops himself from cursing since he’s told Carlo to stop printing these or to at least change the advice on them.

“Give that a read if you want to stop being such a killjoy,” Renzo says.

“Stop and listen to me for a second!”

Scenes of Renzo’s and Delia’s many love interests pass by Dario, many of which end in fights both verbal and physical, but they usually keep ending up together even after cheating and breaking up with one another time and time again. Dario rips apart the pamphlet and is about to run after the two until he finds himself back in normal reality and Adelina’s arms again.

Noticing the sudden jolt to his movement and the tired look on his face, Adelina says, “Did you just go to the theatre?”

“Yeah…” Dario says as he gently holds her and looks away.

“Is everything okay? You look defeated.”

“Well, I wasn’t able to change the minds of the two people I was talking to. I don’t even know why I was kicked back into reality.”

“Don’t worry about it. The Stage Master had some purpose in you being there and will probably do the rest of the job himself or with another person.”

“Yeah…I guess so…” Adelina squeezes Dario with a big hug. “Ow! What?”

“Stop feeling so bad! That’s my job! You’re supposed to be the most positive between the two of us, so you better stop feeling bad or else I’ll start feeling worse.”

“Okay, okay. Thank you, Adelina.”

“Shut up and start smiling again.”

A day of work passes until Dario hears news of a car crash the next morning. Having a bad feeling that he should look at it, Dario looks into what happened and is shocked to read that Renzo and Delia were the ones who were killed in the crash after a night of drinking and partying. He sits dumbfounded and blankly staring at the news until he finds himself back in the theatre. His eyes look up at me and there’s an expression on his face that I have the answer to.

“Renzo and Delia didn’t want to hear the truth. They didn’t want to change, and because of that, they sealed their fate. You didn’t do anything wrong and there was nothing more you could’ve done,” I say to him before snapping him back to reality.

Now, Dario feels slightly better, and yet, still longs for a better answer, but he knows better. The truth can sometimes be hard to accept, shallow, unbelievable, and make you feel empty. Adelina comes across him staring at the news and asks him about it.

After telling her about it, she hugs him and says, “Don’t be upset. Remember what you said to me a few days ago? Well, you are my joy, and now, it’s my time to be yours, so let me help you move on.”

She then kisses him and holds him tighter as he cries.