The powders envelope your skin…forming a mask free of expression with holes for eyes and the mouth.The black aint around the eyes confines your expresson to one of frozen indiference,eyelashes bristling spitting hatred for the world.The paint around the eyes fills up the hole on the mask trying to minimize the stark contrast between the peerfect arch eyebrows dark eyes and the pale rigidity of the mask,trying to take the edge off the galvanization,trying to make you human,look human.The red accentuates the pink of the perfect cheekbones and their haughtiness as they stand up arrogantly saying ‘I dont-give-a-damn’. The most unkindest cut of all is what you do the lips,you murder their normal none-too-cherubic-but-still-not-all-that-bad pinkness with shimmering glittering muck completing the picture with the shiny straight black hair.
You look in the mirror.You find some stranger you have met somewhere before,got introduced to and then didnt even bother remembering the name of.The stranger could have no expressions other than the whole ‘I look down pon you world’written all over the mask.It cannot have woken up bleary eyed half asleep and groped on the table to switch off the alarm evn though she’s late for work.It cannot have staggered around the room in a bath robe,wet hair forming weird shapes around her face looking around for the lens case,thanks to too many of them .This is not the person who dies of a temporary all-engulfing bout of depression if someone hasn’t left her a message when she checks her cell phone first thing in the morning which vanishes INSTANTLY as the little happy face lights up saying ‘Lakshit calling’.It cannot be the person in a pony tailin rolled up jeans and too big for her T’s laughing her heart out clutching at the sides.most importantly,the stranger in the mirror cannot cry.
