The storm clouds form, over the sea.

The seal on the passenger side window has all but rotted away, and means my rusted old Ford whirs with the wind, and on days like today whistles with the pressure of air through the slight crack.

I start to feel cold.

I want to watch the swell a while longer so I put a hoody on that was sat on the backseat and stuff the gap with an old towel to stop the wind getting in.

The clouds have rolled in from the west, looking dark and bruised. They seem to be aching for the relief of the land. I turn the radio on and look for a station, but the static in the air makes it difficult so instead I root out a Lamb tape from under the seat. I listen to the heartbeat of Lou Rhodes unborn child in What is That Sound, the song a caressing hum of maternity. I feel like crying but I can’t, so instead I close my eyes and disappear.

I’m startled awake by rain hailing the car like gravel. I’m unsure how long I have dozed. I don’t wear a watch.

The tape has finished but evening hasn’t set in quite yet. The car feels still colder now so I turn the engine over and start the heater going. Once the heater has warmed I decide it’s probably time to go. I’ve been alone long enough.

As I pull out the car drives over an empty can, it makes a mechanical discomforting sound. Considering what a state the car looks, its body is a mess of rust and filler, it still drives well. My father gave me it a couple of years ago when I passed my test. He was never one for outward appearances, so never really took care of the bodywork, living on the coast this meant the cars paint had been stripped by the salt water in a lot of places. But he always made sure that the engine was in good condition. He said a car’s like a mongrel dog.

-They aren’t for show, but they should live a long life.

The state of the car doesn’t really bother me. I’m not one for cruising.

I drive down the promenade awhile, it cuts back past an old private school, a huge old estate, then I cut into the town centre and pull up in a pub car-park near to where my dealer lives. He answers the door more quickly than I expect. He’s wearing baggy jeans and an oversized t-shirt. His face is covered by a leather mask – the type worn by wrestlers. His small pale white frame and gaunt features look comical under this garb and I’m tempted to laugh, but don’t.

His eyes look tired beneath the mask, but he invites me in anyway. “I’m just waiting to pick up.” He tells me. “What you after?”

I ask for a half ounce of green.

“No specials?” He tempts.

“No, you know me only birthdays and Christmas for that sort of thing.” I couldn’t plain afford any anyway, I think, though I’ve never been a huge fan of cocaine. It’s ok, while you’re on it but you never really feel that high, it just makes you strut around like your some kind of hero. It works well when you’re trying to pull girls though. It gives you all the talk but none of the content. Exactly what people want to hear.

“You’ll have to wait a bit the guy should be round soon.” He was wrapping as he said this so I didn’t mind the wait. After a few blasts he passes it to me.

I’m sitting in front of a large plasma-screen TV, it dominates the room and my eyes can’t help being drawn to it as I smoke the joint. I pull my eyes away to look at him. I notice that beneath the mask he looks really dehydrated. His lips are dry and spittle has collected around the edge of his mouth, looking gooey and white. The joint I am smoking suddenly disgusts. I try to start a conversation, I but can’t.

I start to look at the TV again, its just some American cop show about traffic violators, I don’t watch it as much as just stare at it, bored. Plastic Fantastic Lover comes to mind.

In the car I wrap a spliff, just a single skin, for the journey. Any bigger and it might attract attention, plus, I’m already quite stoned. When it’s wrapped I place it in the ashtray and look for a light. While looking I realise I have a message from Lucy asking if we are meeting up later, I quickly text back – Maybe?

I light the joint and stick on the radio, The Killers, Mr Brightside is playing – yeah right!

I’m sitting with Lucy’s mum, Susan, and we share a smoke. It seems strange to be sitting in her front room just casually smoking weed like this, but she’s pretty relaxed, so she makes me feel quite at ease. She asks me a lot of questions about work, and what I want to do eventually. The questions are ones I can’t answer. She seems okay that I’m not sure. I change the subject.

Lucy, shouts down that she’s finished in the shower so I go up to her room.

Lucy works at the same bar I do, she just does weekends though while going to college. We’ve been hanging out quite a lot recently ‘cause she’s always up for a laugh on my nights off. She’s only wearing a bathrobe as she dries her hair. She’s sat on her legs, crossed underneath her, talking to me, through the mirror. From my position on the bed I can see the gape in her breasts where her dressing gown is open. I’m not sure if she realises I’m looking. I start to become aroused and I am glad of the break when she goes to the bathroom to change. I stand up and re-adjust my semi erect penis, removing it from the leg of my trousers to a more comfortable, and a less obvious position. I’m not sure if I’m aroused by Lucy, her mum, or just the idea of sex? I try to think what going out with Lucy might be like, but I can’t.

* * * * * * *

I was really surprised that Jason wanted to leave so early today. We did have sex, quickly, before he left – dutifully. It’s strange I’ve fancied him for ages, but now that it’s actually happened I’m not sure I’m interested. I guess it’s like Christmas. He seemed just so much more transparent, naked. He was like, such a cool guy, or so I thought, but then lying in bed together last night, straight after, I realised that he just doesn’t have much to say, or at least not to me. He didn’t even hold me after.

We lay there our bodies coldly touching, our minds so far apart.

I saw Didi later on. She called me so we could meet and have drinks. I walked into town to meet her. We met in this little candle-lit cellar bar, called Under G, or something like that. I’d been there before but never really paid attention. So while the sun shone bright outside we hid away from the light. It almost seemed a waste of the day, but Didi said she wanted the privacy. She needed to talk to me about something. Turns out it was nothing more important than her mother’s new boyfriend. Apparently he was a complete bastard, again! This one had been flirting with her and had tried to kiss her.

“I can’t believe he dared touch me! He was groping my arse and everything the filthy bastard.” Didi explained.

I asked how she got him to stop.

“I told the filthy fucker I’d tell mum, but I’m sure he’s gonna do it again, he didn’t even seem that put off that I might grass, I mean are they ever, he seemed excited if anything, dirty prick!”

There was a look of derision in her eyes that made this situation seem different. I mean, this in itself was nothing unusual. Didi craved the attention of these guys. Then, they always got the wrong ideas about her.

I’m not exactly sure how she went about trying to get there fatherly attentions but I don’t think that she acts like the innocent daughter type. Her mother’s like a complete slag, and I think the traits have been passed on. Bless Didi, she doesn’t have a clue. This must be like the fifth of her mum’s partners that have tried it on with her. The first time I heard about it I was really shocked, telling her to tell her mother all about it and stuff but now I’m just so used to it I just listen and rattle of the same old advice, don’t allow him to be alone with you, etc. Didi’s a bit of a slut anyhow, I’m sure she does enjoy this attention. I mean, she’s my friend, but I wouldn’t leave her alone with a boyfriend for long especially if she’d had a few. She was once at this party and took like three guys off separately to the toilet, I know she didn’t fuck them all, but they all walked out happy, and I knew at least two of them had girlfriends. Men can be such whore-bastards!

After she had poured out her latest problems she asked me how things were going over in my camp – things with Jason. I told her nothing much. To be honest I didn’t really know. I decided not to mention the sex. It was nothing much to write home about and Didi probably wasn’t the type to keep quiet. I told her that I didn’t think anything was probably going to happen between us. We were just friends.

After a few afternoon drinks Didi persuaded me to join her later, apparently a few people were going out, and since I had the night off I thought I may as well, my exams were weeks away, I had plenty of time before I needed to knuckle down and do some hard work.

On my walk home I passed a group of dancing children, they were dancing to Kim Novak’s Oil on Water. They were performing some kind of play in the town centre, the music gave it an eerie and macabre feel even in the bright sunshine. Their small faces were all covered with masks as they played out their roles. I stood to watch for a while but having missed the beginning it was difficult to understand the significance.

The night out with Didi was not to happen in the end. The next time I saw Didi she was in hospital. For both Didi and myself our return homes were experiences we would not forget.

I got back into the room at around five, the house smelt of skunk. I guessed it must have been lingering from smoking last evening but it did seem awfully strong still. I placed my bag down in the kitchen and got a glass of water, my mouth dry with the lacquer of alcohol. There were a couple of glasses, in the kitchen, long vodka tonics, nothing strange about that, mum hitting the drinks early. I put them in the sink and went to shower.

I found them together in my mother’s bed, his bare back visible. It had been so close to me only hours before. I knew it was him, though I could not see his face. I didn’t recognise my mother beneath her face of shame.

Didi I couldn’t recognise beneath the face she had been inflicted. Her mother’s boyfriend had returned to the house drunk. She had tried to fight him off, but if anything this had only made his rage the worse. He had beaten and raped her.

Another Sleepless night for me. She reminded me, the Tracy Chapman lyric. After I saw Didi at the hospital I walked. I walked out of the hospital and away from everyone, but there was never an escape – not from people. In everyone’s face I saw nothing more than a pantomime.

Storm clouds formed over-head. I watched their shadows creep over me. I felt cold.

Critical Analysis

The desire was to do a piece from several perspectives. The story developed from having three narratives to just two, the viewpoints of Jason and Lucy. The use of first person was important because this allowed a build up of character and also meant that the reader would gather the story as it developed, rather than open the story up to early by use of an omniscient narrtor.

Influenced by Huraki Murikami and Brett Eastern Ellis – the Jason character being a development of ideas from Less Than Zero, the story moves slowly and steadily with a subtle plot. Both these writers use simple direct first person character driven narratives in much of their work. Murikami’s work is beautiful in its simple yet poetic language. His work can be extremely surreal (Kafka being a big influence on him). Yet his work has a realism to it that this piece intended to utilise. The aspect of the masks is where the influence comes in. The symbolism of masks, covering ones identity is an idea that people use in their everyday lives.

The song included by Kim Novak is a reference to this, it discusses how we wear different masks for different people. There are several musical references in the piece. These are to help the reader to connect with the piece by referencing music they may well know, and also to add a secondary sensory aspect to the story.

Each of the songs is representative of the scene of the character. The first song by Lamb is a song about pregnancy and the connection between the mother and child. Here the character Jason is alone in his car, however he is lonely and he listens to the song to comfort him. The Killers song is a reference to how Jason feels and also to the situation of cheating later, and the Tracy Chapman Song lyric from Behind the Walls is a reference to household abuse.

The story is weak in that the pace is a little too slow and much of the story is clichéd. The attempt was to write about normal situations and add a secondary more sinister undertone – the masks we wear. However the story does not seem to have progressed to its necessary limit.