Chapter 1
The weekend caught up to him as it always did, wielding a spiked mace and striking him with a crushing blow. This, Oscar knew, was inevitable.
Work, however foolish it may have been, served as a distraction for Oscar. The mindless clicking of a screen and never-ending boredom had all shaped into a cruel form of catharsis; he always knew he had something to do. There was always some checklist to go through: logging work hours, eating lunch, responding to emails, joining meetings, and so forth.
Oscar worked at Samuelson’s Incorporated, an all-purpose corporate entity that produced everyday consumer products, including laundry detergent, tooth brushes, audio systems, vacuum cleaners, candles, vaccines, snacks, airplane parts, military-grade weapons, and much, much more. Company research estimates that 95% of the human population owns at least one Samuelson’s product in their home.
Oscar himself was an ordinary man. His defining physical characteristic: he was born with the head of an octopus, although most people didn’t care too much. From the neck down, he had the makings of a human. One heart, two lungs, ten fingers, ten toes. From above his neck sat a pair of eight tentacles, approximately two-thousand suction cups, a pair of tired eyes, and a beak through which he spoke and ate.
But that was all past him. The behemoth had stopped spitting and swallowing, if only for a few hours, and Oscar was now confronted with a new beast that promptly enveloped him with a deafening silence.
The pain ached, reaching, and burning the most inner parts of his being. Any damages present were highly non-physical, of course, as Oscar remained pacing about his room, but they clearly affected the soul.
It was a pain brought on by ennui and an unanswerable question of what-to-do. Oscar felt like a boat floating in an ocean with no passengers, no horizon, and no currents or winds to ride on.
Oscar walked to his window in search of inspiration and looked down towards the city streets. He saw the imposing logo of an abandoned sugar factory in the distance. Much closer, he could see an empty schoolyard, with scattered leaves and net-less basketball hoops. To his east was an avenue featuring his local grocery store, laundromat, crusty burger joint, Taekwondo studio, nail salon, barber, liquor store, and frequented pub, Bar Mellow. The bar had a run-down pink facade, with orange curtains obscuring the inside rooms. To the side, he could peek over the fence of its patio, which was presently empty and decorated by Christmas lights and burnt-out tiki torches. The city presented nothing, and he concluded that the uncomfortable heat had driven the city folk back towards their homes. Even the sounds of the city were no longer company for him.
The hours passed, like flipping through the pages of a book. Six, seven, eight o’clock at night.
On and on they passed, and Oscar found himself with nothing to fill them with—nothing to write. It was at moments like these where the corners of his home looked darkest, and the stars in the night sky crueler. Something was itching inside him, trying to come out.
“You’re young!” Oscar derided himself. “You’re young and you’re just sitting here, wasting your life?”
He pulled away from the window, brought out a laptop from his bedside cupboard, booting it up. Every motion had an almost instinctual rhythm as he typed his password and filled his logins in a seemingly ritualistic manner.
The login screen reflected off his eyes: ‘FreakFinder.com’ showed in white curved letters on a red banner, with a devil’s tail peeking out the end of the final ‘R’.
“We meet again,” he told himself, “Username… Octopus_Guy. Password, … MoldyMuffins18.” Login complete.
Now loaded, FreakFinder presented a novel dating website that cataloged people based on their offerings and desires. It categorized users into two broad segments: the freaks—those who provided the deprived and paraphilic with a novel experience, and the finders—those who were ‘ordinary’ people, unsatisfied with the normal spectrum of personal experience.
The latter consisted of people in society with particularly interesting abnormalities, such as people with extra arms, two tongues, animal parts, feathers, fur, and, of course, octopus heads.
They were the ostracized bunch, who found themselves adored and demanded in the light of an obscure dating website. It was in the taboo that they found freedom of judgment, and they relished in the darkness.
For the finders, they often found themselves at a moment where bondage had become colorless, sadism a chore, and hedonism a default state of functioning; they were searching for another kick. It was a perfect relationship between the displaced and the hungry, packed with lust and odd body parts, devoid of intimacy and commitment.
For Oscar, romance found itself on the cusp of modernity, all wrapped up and tied behind him, hanging on a stick in a patchwork blanket. It bounced on his back as he stepped, and what was once jangling noisily in that patchwork blanket became nothing but a muted thud on his numb back. He no longer felt it, he no longer heard it, and he carried it, unaware of what it all meant inside.
By merit of his anatomy, Oscar was of high demand on FreakFinder. It’s not every day that you find an individual whose taboo manifested eightfold, in ways beyond simple bad behavior.
He demanded the most from those interested in the novelty of a ‘tentacle spectacle’, as the community called it. There would be no meetings or prospects of getting in close touch with him without first being fine dined to shellfish and wine; oysters being a primary choice to match Oscar’s sensibilities. All paid for, of course, by the date. He typically demanded to be picked up and dined and treated like the luxury that he was: well-endowed with nothing more than his unique repulsiveness.
This dynamic in which Oscar often found himself was in direct contradiction with his normal submissive self, born from the FreakFinder community. This is how Oscar kept himself busy on weekends.
Keeping true to the unrestrained nature of its users, FreakFinder established no direct limitations to the way users could interact. Freaks could arrange with freaks, and finders could arrange with finders; the options were unlimited. But as was the case for many things in life, ironically, many users on FreakFinder followed self-imposed guidelines about who they do and don’t make themselves available to bang.
Oscar, for example, was ordinarily afraid of and intimidated by the presence of an attractive woman. A fact that remained true only until the moment he knew she was interested in having sex with him.
As a result, Oscar made himself almost exclusively open only to Finders, finding comfort in the difference between their uniqueness and enthusiasm for an encounter. Any insecurities that had crippled him up to that point only served as a ground for feigned and undeniable confidence.
So, he sat in silence at his desk, scrolling past message requests and images of pierced genitalia, bondage setups, feet, breasts, legs, leather, lace, and all sorts of camera angles and poses to suit, temporarily forgetting about the anxiety that once smothered him.
Nothing stood out to him, yet he continued to click and scroll, click and scroll for hours. Oscar felt a wave of disquiet lap at his feet at the thought of not finding a match, and the feeling only grew as the clock in his room continued ticking. The waves were only sloshing at his shoulders when suddenly his screen flashed with a notification, and the words “SeductiveHotSloppies would like to send you a message”.
Oscar was interested in the name, then the face, then the body. Messages were exchanged, and within minutes, Oscar had arranged a date. Something within him shifted, and suddenly, like pulling the plug on a drain, the waves of disquiet swirled away, finally taking with them the heat and anxiety of the day.
Ego swelled within his chest, and Oscar truly began to feel like the man he was meant to be. Because somehow, he was now desired; because somehow, he did what he felt he should; because somehow, he felt fulfilled.
He confirmed all the details, and Oscar was ready for his date with SeductiveHotSloppies. Her real name was Paola—a small, tanned, Maltese girl with a short black bob-cut.
The course of their date would be simple: they would meet at some bar, exchange hellos, consume a few drinks, and, by some way or another, end up in someone’s bedroom.
He was alone at Bar Mellow when he saw her come in. She wore a tight black skirt, complimented by a red-patterned jacket worn over a white-collared shirt. The pair greeted each other and took their places next to each other at the bar.
“Shall we get a drink?” he proposed, and the bartender soon presented himself with a pair of long glasses of water in hand. He swirled the thin straw in his glass, and the standard small talk began.
“So, how long have you been on FreakFinder?” Asked Oscar.
“I don’t know…” Pondered Paola, with an accent that made her sound more innocent than she probably was. “For a few months now, I think I have not had over ten dates.”
“Oh, cool.” Remarked Oscar, taking a sip of his drink. “So you’re still new to the community. That’s cute.”
Paola felt challenged at this and asked him how many dates he had been on himself. Oscar only raised his eyebrows and quickly gulped the last of his water before ordering two dirty martinis, ignoring the question.
“Found any interesting encounters so far?” Asked Oscar, trying to change the focus back to her.
The server interrupted by presenting the drinks, served over a frosty glass with a skewered olive. Paola took a sip and rolled her eyes coquettishly.
“Only one worth noting,” she giggled. “He was a college boy from the city.”
Oscar looked at her, waiting to see what exactly was so freaky about that.
“I had sex at the same time with him and his dad.” She tapped her chin pensively, “It was, how do you say, a threesome?”
The unexpected turn took Oscar slightly aback, but found it normal among the spectrum of freaks that ran among the dating platform.
“What about you?” Asked Paola, “Any encounters worth mentioning?”
Oscar laughed, “Meeting people here is ironic, you know? Girls only come to me on here for the novelty. They just want to see what it’s like.”
Oscar took a sip from his glass.
“Something about me and my octopus head seems attractive to them. You think they’re going to be bigger freaks than you, but most of the time it’s nothing special.”
Oscar hoped he hadn’t pre-emptively offended Paola after noticing how his statement fell flat.
“What are you looking for tonight?” Oscar asked.
“If we are being frank,” said Paola, “I want to be eaten out by a man with an octopus head. And you?”
Oscar thought for a moment, looking past her shoulder.
“Some love and affection or something…” He said, as if he were talking to himself.
“What?” Asked Paola, unable to have properly heard his response.
“Nothing really,” replied Oscar. “Just trying to eat someone out, as an octopus, I guess.”
Oscar looked up at her face and saw nothing but a cute Maltese girl, with round eyes that were sharp at the edges, almost like a cat. Her iris and pupils appeared to be see-through, and their darkness matched the dark background of the black wall behind her.
“Don’t you know?” She said, “Your teeth are the most intimate part of your body.”
“I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
Paola crossed her arms and looked towards Oscar with her head cocked.
“How many people’s mouths have you looked into, ever?”
“I don’t know, barely any, if I think about it.”
“Have you ever looked into your mother’s mouth?”
“No. But I don’t think that proves anything.”
“Do you ever even check your own mouth?”
“Sometimes, I—No, not really. I guess I just feel around with my toothbrush.”
“You see,” Said Paola, “then it is intimate. I’m sure more people have seen your dick and balls than have looked in your mouth. Except for the dentist maybe.”
“But people smile all the time. Their mouths are like enormous billboards for their genetic superiority and dental hygiene.”
Despite the back and forth, Paola seemed unphased, almost as if she was expecting and had prepared all her answers.
“Do you even know how many teeth you have yourself?”
“I don’t know if you noticed,” Oscar said, picking up a tentacle, “but my anatomy is a little different. I have a beak and no teeth.”
“Then let me see.”
Paola scooched her bar stool closer to him, her body lightly touching his.
She grabbed his face by the cheekbones and ran her smooth hands down his tentacles. Her hands traced his face to the base of his tentacles and kept going until she reached the tips and extended them back, revealing Oscar’s buccal region like an umbrella turned inside-out by the wind.
“Interesting.” She went on probing every detail, stretching Oscar’s face to allow the lightbulb above them to illuminate every angle of his mouth.
Oscar could feel Paola’s hands go moist and clammy as she examined him, breathing heavier with every instance.
“Uhn… I sink yuah on ta so’sing.”
Paola let go, and Oscar’s face snapped back into shape.
“What?”
“I think you’re onto something.” Oscar said, massaging his sore cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more violated in my life—and I’ve seen some shit.”
Paola’s face flushed. She turned back to the bar table and pushed around the olives in her glass.
“Would you… like to see mine?”
“See your what?” Oscar said, raising his eyebrows; the tone of his voice had a hint of defeat.
Paola laughed, “My mouth, silly. Do you want to look into it?”
“At this point,” Oscar said, “I feel obligated.”
Paola turned to him again, and now it was Oscar’s turn to see it all. He heard every bubble and strand of saliva extend from her tongue to the roof of her mouth as she opened it. She hooked the inside of her cheeks with her index fingers and spread it open. There was a light “Ah” coming from somewhere down her throat.
Like Chiclets, her two front teeth stood proud and shiny as a keystone to her most “intimate” place. Her teeth were straight, save a few crowded teeth on the bottom, and she had a golden filling on her first bicuspid. She had clearly brushed her tongue right before their date, and he saw it pulse slightly with her breath as saliva formed a drop at its tip.
Moments passed, and her taste buds became individually distinguishable as the air dried her saliva tongue. Her teeth lost their sheen for the same reason, and eventually, it was all over. Oscar heard her teeth come together as her mouth went shut, almost like the sound of a closing rivet button.
The two stood there for a moment, Oscar not knowing what to do, wondering if this would lead to anything else. He suddenly grew aware of his tongue and felt it roll in his mouth as he waited.
They talked and flirted some more, and he took the same familiar steps from the bar he always used on his FreakFinder encounters. He listened to the familiar click of heels going down the pavement and up the stairs to his apartment.
It felt all too familiar, he thought, the rushed breath between kisses, the same white-sheeted bed, the same gray curtains that gently rustled from the corner of his eye.
He watched her body on his own; he observed the way her smooth skin curved beneath his hand. He thought about some leftovers in the fridge, and about the milk he forgot to buy. She was beautiful to watch, a true dime-piece, he thought to himself.
Her movements were smooth and intense, but Oscar felt nothing. And the encounter itself was nothing outside of the ordinary, besides the fact that Paola would pitch Oscar’s tentacles like a tent during any position where they were facing each other, and her request that he could only finish in her mouth.
The act wrapped up, and soon enough Oscar and Paola waited for a taxi to come pick her up in silence, sitting not too close or far away from each other on the bed. He considered buying some type of chair or couch to sit on to avoid the awkward bed sitting on his next hook up.
Paola left, and he thought about what had just happened, like it was a movie he had just rewatched. The night felt like he had just popped in an old cassette.
“Was I expecting some new scene? Was I expecting to feel something any different?”
He walked to the shower, all lackadaisical, and the cold water seemed to slide off his skin and not take any dirt, grime, or sweat with it. He took extra time that day, brushing and scrubbing every part of his mouth. But no matter how much he scrubbed, there was a dull feeling—or better said—a feeling of dullness that he could not shake off.
Oscar finished and saw himself in the mirror. Was it because he felt the need to be a ‘Man?’ Was it for his ego? He asked himself: Did the growing archive of mental movies somehow make him fuller?
These horrible questions pestered him like a plague, from the shower to his bed. He fell asleep feeling dirty and unfulfilled, drowning in a sea of disquiet.
That night, Oscar had no dreams. Black clouds blended into the night sky above him. Lightning never struck, and all thunder fell mute. There was only an ionized pressure that befell him, boundless and heavy above his bones and skin.
Chapter 2
The following day, Oscar sat at his desk, pretending to work. And at his desk he sat, unlike the others. Not because God had graced him with the body of a human, and the head of an octopus, but because he was probably the only one there trying to ping his CEO. A handwritten letter, much like the CEO, sat righteous and proper, above a pile of underlings: noble and unmatched in its formality of communication. And down the line, from emails, to fax, to voicemail, stood the ping, dressed in khakis, and condemned to the realm of casual communication. And much like the ping, stood Oscar, at the bottom of a dominion of mechanisms, each higher and more powerful than those below.
He fantasized about how it would go. Casually inviting him to a coffee date—out of his own pocket—of course, asking how his day was going; how often does the CEO receive tender reassurances and support from his peers? His ideas wrestled with each other, much like the eight independent tentacles that lay slung across his light blue oxford shirt.
Maybe born with the head of a lion, he would have the demeanor to paw a proper message on the keyboard. With the head of a snake, have the cunning to sneak his way up the corporate ladder, finding a seat among the reptiles and cretins that ruled the world. Or most likely of all, the head of a human, so that he would wrap up his daydreaming and get back to work.
Oscar was quietly sitting at his desk when suddenly a bald, round head emerged from behind his computer screen and broke his daydream.
“I’m not lying to you Ozzy—I swear to god I’m telling you the truth.”
Oscar did not look up from the screen, deciding not to entertain Tony’s absurd claims.
“It happens all the time, man. I’m telling you!” Tony was trying to convince Oscar that Monica, the office assistant, was flirting with him.
“I’m not sure, Tony... she doesn’t strike me as the type of girl who would do something like that,” Oscar said, swiveling his chair around and glancing over his shoulder to validate his claim.
There he saw Monica wearing a baby pink blouse with short, puffed sleeves and a pair of wire-frameless glasses that made her eyes look smaller than they actually were.
“She teases me all the time from her desk, man! I can see it from the corner of my eye, Ozzy—I catch her doing it all the time.”
“Really?”
“She’ll start looking at me like she wants to, you know… get it.”
“Is that so?”
“Not only that—but she’ll start winking at me, and licking her lips, and blowing me kisses.”
“Uh-huh,” Said Oscar, still not looking up from his screen, raising a single eyebrow.
“It’s been getting even crazier lately too…” said Tony, leaning closer and lowering his voice.
“The other day, I was walking by the supply closet, and I saw her inside—”
“No way!” Said Oscar, in a sarcastic tone.
“Can you shut up and let me finish the story?” Said Tony, growing frustrated with Oscar’s indifference.
“She saw me walk by and put her finger on her lips, so I’d be quiet. And then, out of nowhere, she started unbuttoning her blouse.”
Oscar finally looked up from the screen to look at Tony across their shared desk.
“And you wouldn’t believe it, man.” Said Tony, leaning even closer to speak to Oscar in a whisper.
“She was wearing that sexy kind of underwear with the frills and laces—whatever you call it—underneath.”
“You mean lingerie?”
“Yeah, that stuff—”
“And what happened next?” Oscar asked, trying to get the story moving, when suddenly Tony felt a disturbance in his periphery.
There she was again, Monica, smiling at Tony across the office, showing her large white teeth. And just as he focused his eyes on her, she blew him a kiss that walked across the office with a slow, sultry gait.
“Jesus!” Tony jumped in his seat.
“There she goes again! Turn around, man, turn around!” Tony urged Oscar in a hushed tone.
Oscar rolled his eyes and casually looked back.
There he found Monica sitting at her desk, typing on her computer, looking plain as ever. If only her red plastic-framed glasses would distract one from her tight-gelled ponytail that frizzed a little at the ends. Oscar couldn’t imagine her doing anything other than printing documents and organizing files. And what she did on weekends–or in bed–could not be any more interesting. He looked back at Tony plainly and said nothing.
“I know you don’t believe me, Ozzy. But one day you’ll find out I’m not lying.” Tony just slouched back in his chair and sighed, continuing his office work.
From Oscar’s end, their friendship was born of convenience, well, because there wasn’t anyone else he enjoyed speaking with at the office. Tony was a simple man who operated on immediate desire. A characteristic which would only become apparent to Oscar as their relationship developed. For the time being, he was a stocky fellow with a shaved head, a big smile, and an even bigger laugh, leaving imprudent comments as he went, all while claiming an understanding of love and relationships that he did not fully comprehend. There was nothing more he could say that would convince Oscar without any concrete evidence.
Men could have the imagination to undress and do the unimaginable to a woman with their hungry eyes alone. But when it came to emotions, love, motivation, they were inept at piecing things together.
***
Beyond daydreaming, Oscar found himself preoccupied with greater things besides work. This week’s task comprised getting a new high score at computer solitaire. Despite being a valued and honorable employee of the world’s largest consumer goods company, Samuelson’s Incorporated, the specific tasks and duties that were expected of Oscar were unknown to himself and his superiors.
Fresh out of university, Oscar became part of their flagship “Diversity and Inclusion” program.
With no resume on hand, and much less question, Samuelson’s offered Oscar a position with utmost expediency; and as his orientation email claimed, the company found itself to be “overjoyed” and “greatly honored” to offer a career opportunity to such a unique and hitherto marginalized individual.
Upon his first day on the job, Oscar joined the company along with nine other individuals, most of whom came from developing countries, and was personally greeted by the CEO with a firm handshake and warm smile. Even then, a younger, more optimistic Oscar never found himself properly onboarded or acquainted with his job and the rest of his team, as weekly diversity seminars turned into tri-weekly to daily photoshoots and events, eventually overshadowing any meaningful assignments his boss would give him.
To maintain the dynamic integrity of its teams, Samuelson’s had implemented a semiannual mandatory job rotation system. Oscar cycled through various teams, positions, and social circles, the likes of which he would also never properly become acquainted with.
As the job rotations cycled, and diversity events increased in number. With time, nine of the ten original members of the Diversity and Inclusion program left the company one by one, ironically, because of a lack of career prospects, leaving only Oscar and a multi-paged resume full of introductory skills and fluff.
The management at Samuelson’s had a habit of using coded language in their internal employee evaluations when sending their former underling to a new position. Phrases such as, “great team spirit” meant that the referred-to was a party animal; “pleasure to have in the office” meant that the referred-to was a fine piece of eye candy; superlatives meant excellence; bare minimum satisfaction, despite being positive, was always negative; and an “enthusiasm to help others” meant a tendency to flirt in the office.
In Oscar’s letters, he “generally” fulfilled expectations, was nowhere close to ever being a “pleasure to have in the office”, and always, invariably, “contributed immensely to the diversity of the team’s composition”—his saving grace. This mediocrity, or rather, inability to rise past it, was not because of any lack of inherent ability, but was rather because he had the opportunity stripped away from the very beginning.
Years had passed, and Oscar, much like anybody in the proceeding teams that managed him, would each realize that it was too late for him to catch up on any of the fundamentals he missed out on at the start of his career.
So, there he sat, day in and day out, rolling through titles and positions, trying to occupy his time by finding passive desk work, which was now almost only dedicated to loathing, daydreaming, and playing computer solitaire. Samuelson’s Incorporated relegated him to be the ugly poster boy for office-wide inclusivity and diversity.
***
Another workday was over. Oscar packed his things, was spat out of Samuelson’s revolving doors, walked a block to the nearest train station and took part in his ordinary commute.
He mounted the train and sat at the end of the wagon in a spot where he could strategically sunbathe as his commute progressed. The sun glowed on his face, and he saw a shade between orange and yellow through his closed eyelids.
His skin dazzled in what seemed to be layers of translucent red, yellow, and orange flakes. Oscar was fading in and out of sleep as the train rocked and swayed him on its journey through the city. The rails were like concrete veins in an ever-moving and ever-beating organism. All day, people spilled like blood from a wound, from building, to train, to building, each one with their own story, looking for their own roost, waiting to see their own bed, looking forward to taking off their heels and ties and masks.
The train jostled suddenly over something on the tracks, and Oscar’s eyes stretched open as his tentacles themselves momentarily flew in the air and landed on his shoulders. His eyes were adjusting to the brightness and colors in the train. Everything had a green tinge, as colors faded back to their originality.
To his right, there were green and gray streaks of buildings and trees as the train made its course. In front of him was an older woman with a feathered hat and boa on her neck. She looked sad, but seemed to have nothing in particular on her mind.
Further scrolling through the wagon, Oscar saw a man with an under bite, another man in a suit absorbed into and looking at his mobile phone, and a homeless person sleeping horizontally, taking up two seats, leaving a few disgruntled people standing.
Those standing were like strange, wavy plants, whose roots attached to the ceiling handles or support rails of the vehicle. The commuter canopy comprised a collection of tired and unamused faces.
Oscar considered a second attempt at a nap, when among the blue and gray tree trunks emerged what seemed to be a little pink monkey. She was a small child about the age of five; curiosity personified. The girl had no reserves in holding onto the legs of strangers as she walked by and looked up at people.
“Hi!” she would say with a little wave, and strangers would either smile back or reciprocate with a slight gesture.
She made her way to the end of the wagon near Oscar and faced him and the older woman perpendicularly.
“Nice hat,” said the girl, before taking a seat next to her.
She did not take her eyes off the feather at its center, following it as it swayed with the train’s movement.
The older woman did not reply, and only looked at her with a soft smile on her face. She did not show her teeth, and her eyes seemed to disappear among a sea of wrinkles.
The girl’s eyes meandered further and watched the trees and buildings blur by just as Oscar was doing before. Her eyes were blue and icy, and their glare flickered as objects covered and revealed sunlight coming through the window next to them. They looked about the train, and by coincidence, almost surprisingly late into her analysis of her surroundings, stumbled onto Oscar’s peculiar head.
For the first time in Oscar’s brief observation of her, she said nothing upon a first impression of a face. Oscar always felt lost when it came to interacting with children, but he knew he had an above-average capacity to entertain them.
Upon making eye contact with the girl, he lightly wiggled the ends of one of his tentacles. The girl raised her eyebrows and tried to suppress a giggle.
Oscar returned a smile and continued shaking his tentacle whimsically. The little girl couldn’t hold the clowns in her belly any longer and let out a squeaky laugh. Her smile was an array of small white teeth, with a black gap right in the middle.
The two very different strangers were having fun without sharing even a word. One was a mere child, the other a grotesque creature from the deep. Yet somehow, despite it all, they found a tiny connection.
Oscar stopped moving his tentacles and closed his eyes. The child stared in anticipation, her hands balled into soft and tiny fists. He concentrated deeply, and his orange marbled skin blended into the pattern of the chair he was sitting on. The fiery colors turned pale and pulsed into a blue and green criss-cross pattern.
“Woah.” Went the little girl, and she stared in amazement. There was something about children that Oscar enjoyed. They saw him with no prejudice. There was amusement, candid indifference, or innocent fear.
Anything they could do or say, Oscar thought, was better than the wanton malice with which older strangers looked at him.
Disgust and spite were the norm for Oscar; he became dull to it all. But the innocence of a child felt like an oasis within a desert of twisted faces and glaring eyes.
“Amanda!” a voice came shouting from the other side of the wagon.
“Amanda, get over here right now!” An older woman came lumbering through the trees, knocking over and pushing trunks out of her way without regard.
The woman grabbed the little girl strongly by the wrist and pulled her strongly. She obeyed and looked down at her feet; her blonde bangs covered her face.
“You can’t just go around talking to people for no reason.” The woman scolded.
There was what Oscar found to be unwarranted wrath in her eyes. The train screeched to a halt, and the passengers inside shifted their weight along with the momentum of the vehicle.
The doors hissed open, and the woman walked out with the little girl in hand. Oscar looked at her until she left, and he noticed a dried streak of tears on the little girl’s pink freckled cheeks. His heart began to hurt. Not only for the girl, or for that instance, but for many of the people he encountered day-to-day.
He believed everyone wore some kind of mask. It was inevitable. A way of life they were all forced to live. But they were not the typical masks one would think of. They were not Halloween masks; they were not made of wood or stone, or latex or vinyl. They were more like rough and invisible callouses, born of dread, hardened by repression, and sculpted by anxieties and expectations.
He saw the little girl’s mask grow just a little thicker than it once was that day. And he wondered how dense his own mask was. He wondered if it made a difference.
There were many things he was not sure of. The only light at the end of his tunnel—his only personal oasis—lied in the hope of peeking through, of cracking or removing or ignoring his mask or that of another.
He only wanted to see faces, bare and naked, braving whatever pain the world had to inflict.
“They are brave”, he thought, those who faced exposure to the world. “They are brave and beautiful.”
He arrived home that evening more pensive than he usually was. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a pair of tired eyes stare back at him. His hands were clammy, and he felt his face slowly, inch by inch. He was looking for a crack. He wanted to let some light in.
To no avail, despite minutes of pinching and prodding his skin, the only light that showed came in through the windows of Oscar’s apartment.
***
Oscar lived in a small one-bedroom studio on the fourth floor above a convenience store and multi-storied gym in the city center. The sounds of the streets–children laughing and screaming, booming car stereos, bicycle bells–rang from below at all times, and they were Oscar’s only company.
Oscar stepped barefoot from his bathroom to the living area, the dark-gray faux wood creaking and groaning below every step. Somewhere in the distance, a woman’s laughter and the honking of a car rose from the streets; the windows were wide open.
Everything in Oscar’s apartment was in place: a white-sheeted bed with a black and gray sharkskin comforter, a multi-purpose desk used for eating and desk work, and a single white plastic chair to sit on. Everything was easy to dust with a once-over; there was not a single tacked photo or decoration to obstruct the duster’s path-
The walls were also plain and white, save for a single framed picture of a woman in a pearl necklace hanging above his bed and a clock that ticked passively above the kitchen.
Oscar laid on his bed with his arms and legs wide open, angel-like. The gray curtains of the tall studio windows ruffled in the wind, dancing with the spring’s sweet air; the pollen from outside hung delicately in the air.
Oscar closed his eyes and felt the warm sunlight float from the window and land softly on his skin, enveloping him in a warm, delicate embrace.
Moments passed, and soon enough, barely below the absolute threshold of perception, the world about him began to change. The street’s noises, composed of an array of mechanical or human origin, blurred into a homogenous hum that rose from the streets below. The sun, once setting, had completed running its course, and all that remained was a suffocating and stuffy heat that the day had failed to take with it, a man with an octopus head sprawled despondently on a bed, and an interminable and penetrating ticking from a clock that hung dominantly above the room.
The ticking—and its relentless presence stirred a classic bout of anxiety within Oscar. His skin itched, and he paced about his room to soothe any stressful thoughts, to no avail. Spring’s warm embrace had ripened with the setting sun, and there was nothing sweet left to smell.
It was a Friday, the work week was over, and Oscar was now solely responsible for giving himself something to do.
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