Budding Identity

Today had been very slow for Treasach, dragging minutes into hours and rendering his mind mush. The business hadn’t been exactly booming today, maybe getting 4-5 clients in the six hours he had been here, meaning he had lots of time to listen to the clock tick away.

He stopped tapping his pencil against the desk as he heard the little bell chime, indicating people had entered the shop. He stood up from his seat behind the desk, trying to put on a more presentable facial expression before walking to see who had entered the shop.

“I’m telling you man, it was real!”

“It fucking wasn’t, dude! You are lying to me!”

Two teenage boys were having a, seemingly non-serious, argument at the door. Their shouting made Treasach wince, and he had noticed recently he’d become a lot more sensitive to noises, but he shrugged it off. He always shrugged it off.

“Hello,” Treasach tried his best to sound inviting, “May I help you two?”

“Yeah! We’re having an argument and—“

“He means about the plants, obviously!” The taller one lightly smacked his friend around the head.

“Oh, right!” The smaller one laughed, “My mum said she had a delivery come in. Some sort of plant food?”

“Name?”

“Franklyn!”

The taller one, who’d walked away to look at the plants, yelled from across the store, “Your mum’s name, dumbass!”

“Oh,” He held the ‘o’ for a while, “Marina!”

Treasach felt on edge with all the yelling, but tried to stay calm, “Last name, if you would.”

“Davies! Marina Davies!”

“Ah, I know the delivery you need, just one second.”

Treasach turned for the storage room, an admittedly small room with a few rackety shelves in them. He was alone today, so he’d stacked all the shelves himself. People could always tell when he did it, he had a certain way of making it all make sense. As he looked for the name, he eavesdropped on the conversation happening.

“Frank, you have clearly fucking faked this dude!”

“Oh my god! How could I fake this, Dan, go on.”

“You probably just got Isaiah to borrow one of his dad’s stupid suits and then edited the stupider image!”

“Bro I cannot fucking edit for my life! And since when has Isaiah been alive after borrowing a suit?”

Treasach finally found the needed plant food, pulling it from the shelf and carrying it gently in his arms. If the bag got ruined, it was coming from his paycheck, and he needed that money right now. If he got enough, maybe he could build a new life with the short time he had left.

“Here’s your delivery,” Treasach interrupted the squabble, “It should last your mum about three months, if she’s using it right.”

“Thanks!” Franklyn exclaimed, grabbing the bag like it was no issue.

Treasach was about to walk back to the desk, to infinite boredom, when Franklyn cleared his throat, “I’m sorry, is there more I can do to help?”

“Yeah! Are you busy at all?”

Treasach looked around the deserted shop, “No.”

“Cool! Can you settle this argument me and my friend are having?”

“C’mon Frank, leave the poor dude alone! He doesn’t have to.”

Franklyn and Dan started squabbling between themselves, which Treasach interrupted with a shrug, “I don’t see why not.”

“Thank you!” Franklyn did a little dance, “See, just a few days ago I caught this on my phone.”

Franklyn handed Treasach the phone, which he squinted at to see the picture a little better. When he did, however, his heart sank. It was him, undeniably, even if the face was corrupted and warped in the picture. He knew the suit all too well, it was the one he’d worn to his friend’s wedding. He remembered this day, he’d put the mask back on and, thinking no one would be out in the dead of night, went outside. He didn’t even know why he left, something in him needed out, needed freedom.

He realised he had been silent for far too long, and used his free hand to nervously adjust the neck of his shirt, “It could be that the dark lighting messed up part of the photo.”

“But that’s the thing! This weird dude was wearing this super creepy mask! It was like a coyote or something!”

“You’re so fucking lying dude! Just straight up!”

Treasach zoned out slightly as he looked more at the picture. It was him. Someone had seen him, and was talking about him to someone they thought was a random clerk. He felt his heart failing, he could’ve sworn it.

“I think you probably just encountered some weirdo,” Treasach interrupted once more, just about able to act calm, “You’re lucky you came out safe.”

He handed Franklyn back his phone, and the two thanked him before leaving the store still bickering.

Treasach checked the clock, seven-fifteen. He officially could clock out, and wasted no time in doing so. He shoved his name tag into the tiny compartment full of them, grabbed his satchel without a second thought, and rushed out the door — not before turning the sign to “closed”, though.

He just ran, and kept running. He felt like he’d been caught doing some sort of crime, when in reality he was just wearing a mask. But why did the picture look like that? Why was his face so distorted? Was there something bigger at play? He could feel something clawing at his throat, and despite not showing it on his face, inside he felt like he was dying.

He didn’t know how far he’d run, but he found himself out of his small village, and into a ghost town. He didn’t trust this. He hastily opened up his satchel, grabbed the mask and sloppily shoved it on his face.