Ticktock goes the clock...
Vanessa swings open the door. She smiles broadly, revealing sharp vampire teeth.
“Well, hello, Daisy,” Vanessa says. “And you must be Jon? Come in—come on in.”
Well, hello, Daisy.
Welcome home, Daisy.
It’s been a while, Daisy.
Chucky knows who Bad Mommy iz. Chucky knows what Bad Mommy didz.
Daisy blinks. Her world narrows.
It’s Vanessa. It’s her friend. But she has no baby tummy.
“What—what happened to—” The question tumbles from Daisy’s mouth as her brain struggles to interpret her visual stimuli and catch up.
“Oh, you mean this?” Vanessa reaches up, removes her horns, and takes off her hair. She replaces the devil horns, smiles her vampire smile again.
Daisy’s gaze drops to her hands. The devil is holding Vanessa’s hair. Daisy’s eyes shoot up. Her gaze locks on the devil-woman’s. Her eyes are not Vanessa’s eyes. They are bright blue.
Daisy feels dizzy. Her hands go limp, and the pie and flowers clatter to her feet. The pie smashes open, the box breaks, and dark-purple blackberry filling oozes out. In slow, thick motion, Daisy turns to her husband.
His face is sheet white. He’s frozen. As though he’s seen the devil...and it’s real.
THE MAID’S DIARY
So what if people pretend they are something they aren’t? Is it a lie? A crime?
Is it just perception? A sleight-of-hand narrative?
We all project something. Be it in the way we choose to dress—boho, smart casual, sporty, artsy, goth, sophisticated, wealthy socialite, sex kitten, tomboy, biker chick, dancer chic—we put it out there in one shape or another.
How different is wearing a wig and makeup and colored contacts and talking in a different accent, walking in a different way, from posting an Instagram selfie in blurred portrait mode, or with an applied filter, or cutting out background that doesn’t mesh with the brand we want to project to the world? How different is dressing up from posing in front of a five-star hotel that we could never afford, but not saying that we never actually stayed there, just allowing people to draw their own conclusions by juxtaposition? (Like posing in front of the blue Tesla, or the baby’s crib in another woman’s house, or in Vanessa North’s designer outfits from her closet.)
We’re all tricksters. Each and every one of us. No one is a totally reliable narrator. Life is all Story. Every bit of it. We see things through the filter of our own unique worldviews,through our own longings and fears and loves, through our own traumas. Not one single person on this earth is able to interpret a thing in exactly the same way. The world is dynamic in that respect.
When I mention to my shrink that I play roles in public—acting wild-style—she smiles and I ask her what’s funny.
“You’re a trickster, Kit,” she says. “That’s not a bad thing. Tricksters have a key function in life and art. I maintain that if a trickster pranks her way into your life, it’s time to pay attention. They are the definition of duality. Both heroic and villainous, foolish and wise, benign and malicious. Both lovable and hateful. Friendly and fearsome. Both light and dark. If you find yourself drawn to or repulsed by a mischievous trickster or a clown, a rule breaker or magician, it’s a clear sign you need to explore the hidden—the buried—parts of your own nature, because the trickster is trying to poke a stick at your pretensions, your worldviews, your illusions, your false beliefs, your rigid ‘rules.’ In the trickster’s playful provocation, there always lies a hidden message.”
I think of my @foxandcrow account. I think of the things I post there—the mirror I playfully hold up to the world of poseurs and facades. And I believe my therapist.
“If we fail to embrace the lessons of the trickster, Kit,” she says, “we deny ourselves the capacity to witness our own shadow.”
So, Dear Diary, you see? Right from the mouth of my shrink: I play an important role. Mine is a game with purpose.
But sometimes a game turns dangerous.
Not everyone likes being tricked...
DAISY
October 31, 2019. Thursday.
Five hours and five minutes before the murder.
