Skeleton story

Text from a performance with Irini Kalaitzidi https://irinikalaitzidi.com/projects/skeleton-story.html

OCT 25

Would you like to hear my skeleton story? 

Kari sits at her dressing table and skirts her hands delicately over the items arranged in front of her. Waxy face paints in palettes and sticks, cheap, brittle sponges and face wipes. She hadn’t been living in the area long, having moved abruptly after everything that had happened in the Summer. No, she wasn’t going to think about that, that was a different Kari. So, when she had been asked to attend a Halloween party by a new workmate, Charlotte, she was determined to make a good impression. She’d looked at Charlotte’s social profiles just to get an impression of what kind of event it would be. She scrolled carefully through the feed and considered what she found. Charlotte painted in neon patterns at a festival, Charlotte in full black swan costume at what looked like a house party, Charlotte dressed as sad clown the year before. She looked happy, popular, wide eyed and bright. Charlotte took events like this seriously, so Kari would take it seriously too.  

She took a palette of white cream paint in her hand, swirling the rough sponge on its surface before starting the process of turning her face bone white. She wanted this to be perfect, a flawless skull, shadows carved deep around the eyes. She worked slowly, applying layer over layer. Moving to the black paint, her reflection seemed to hollow as she worked, cheekbones sharpening, eyes and lips widening into a rictus grin. The paint was uncomfortable, cold, tacky, almost wet. It smelled of plastic and oil, with an undercurrent sharply smelling of iron. The cheap solution began to sting, the mirror fogged with her breath. The course sponge caught on the fragile skin of her face, feeling it catch, she winced but she worked through the discomfort. Her face pulled under the drag of the sponge and over time stiffened until she could hardly change her expression.  

She inspected her face through the haze of the mirror. Her grin wider than it had been in a long time. She went to the bathroom and washed her hands of the paint, carefully pulling matter from underneath her fingernails. She threw on the rest of her costume, and headed to the party. The chilly autumn air stung a bit deeper as she made her way to Charlotte’s home, but she reasoned this was because the paint was still a little wet, dampening the collar of her shirt.  

Inside, the music pounded, the house filled with people drinking, laughing, leaning into each others spaces, hot breath on ears as people struggled to be heard. A devil threw his head back laughing, and turned to catch Kari’s eye. His laughter died in his throat, eyes widening in barely contained panic. His hand gripped on the shoulder of the vampire he’d been speaking with, who in turn followed the path of his staring eyes to Kari. His skin, turned visibly paler under a patchy layer of talcum powder and his jaw hung loose.  

She grinned. It stretched too far. She swung away, she had done so well. 

She serenely joined the queue to bob for apples. When it was her turn to bob, she plunged her head into the cold water. She felt the water rush into sinuses unpleasantly, her skin felt numb, slippery. She caught an apple between her mouth, and emerged grinning and victorious, the apple caught in sharp teeth. She felt eyes on her and triumphantly bit down. When she swallowed, the chunk slid through her throat and fell out somewhere near her collarbone with a soft, wet tap on the floor. 

Someone screamed. Kari just looked down. The water rippled with her reflection - not painted anymore, but bare, gleaming. The edges of torn skin framing her skull, eyes rolling wide in their sockets. 

She’d done it perfectly. The best skeleton costume she’d ever made. 

Thank you, we needed an audience to verify we have a skeleton