Painted Faces (Short Story)

Darian Elizabeth Lillian Kensington pulls her hair behind her ear and smiles. It’s a quiet smile, and it says everything you should know. Her hazel eyes blink ferociously underneath heavy lashes and a thick bold line of liner. The sharp knock on the door makes her jump but she remains calm and collected, she’s used to this - she knows the routine perfectly.
“Four minutes to stage, I said four minutes to stage, do you hear me?” A voice cuts through her thought pattern, causing her to lose focus. She jolts, throwing her freebie M.A.C Quartz Lip Pencil into the sink. Still, she remains collected, and simply rubs the damp onto a towel and carefully places the pencil back into her make up box and clips the lid firmly shut. Lips pursed, she blots repeatedly onto a paper towel until she is confident her pout will pass. Her petite eyes narrow as she nears the door and, to let out the only real emotion she will be allowed to show all night, she sighs and rolls her pupils from left to right, right to left, then back.
“Three minutes to stage, I said three minutes to stage, do you hear me?” Despite the question, Darian gives no answer. She simply paints a smile neatly on her face, leans down, takes a final deep breath and opens the door.

Her waiting audience is only minutes away. Despite the racing heart and shaking hands, Darian steps with an air of grace. She tenderly accepts the bouquet of flowers thrust towards her by an excitable fan waiting nervously for her backstage and kisses him briefly on the cheek. To her, he is a young, excited fan. To him, she is every dream he has ever had coming true. The irony however, is not lost on Darian, who stops for a quick picture and autograph with the young boy before continuing on her journey towards the stage.
“Ms Kensington, so good to see you, air kisses.” She responds to the command, kissing the stage manager on both cheeks and flashing a dazzling grin.
“I’m very excited to be here,” She confirms, watching the stage manager’s heart almost jump through her chest with restless, glassy eyes. A small, wry smile creeps across her face. “I’m sure we’re in for quite the evening.”

“One minute to stage, I said one minute to stage, do you hear me?”
“I hear you. I have heard you all night and you are starting to get on my nerves.” She whispers, not letting the poor stagehand who has spent his evening bowing to her every need catch on to her ever increasing irritability and lack of interest in being remotely near the stage at all. Darian watches as her enthusiastic young fan skips round the curtain and bumps into her fellow presenter, Oliver Pharoah. She can’t help wondering if he would make a better presenter as, after all, he would much rather prefer to be in the building than she would, let alone on the actual stage.
“Dari!” Oliver exclaims, rushing towards her with his arms outstretched. She does not mirror his emotions. Instead, she quickly embraces him, patting his upper arms delicately before retreating back to the corner she has been hovering in. This move is more tactical than true and, as Darian knows all too well, will be repeated hundreds of times in her future.
“Wonderful to see you darling, absolutely wonderful.” He confirms, watching her with wide eyes.
“I’m sure it is.” She smiles graciously but a fading twinkle in her eye catches the attention of a stray member of the camera crew, causing her to falter. She squints her eyes ever so slightly as she takes her first few steps onto the actual stage, aware of the striking glare of the beam coming towards her from the vast ceiling above. Blinking as she adjusts to the light, she once again paints a neat, trim smile upon her faux face. Dari, she laughs, is a stupid nickname, but the man who named her it is definitely every bit as stupid. As she has realised, Darian would most likely have gone insane a long time ago if she didn’t have herself to keep her company. She follows instruction and stays hidden just behind the curtain, ready to make her grand entrance. Mr Pharoah comes up behind her and places a steady arm round her midsection. Darian grimaces and wriggles free, giving him a stern look.
“And, we’re live.” The stage hand glows with pride as he instructs camera one to swing into action and catch the ‘golden couple’ walking onto stage. Darian takes Oliver’s hand and smiles once again. Her patent black show-stopping heels catch in the spectacular beam of the stage lights and gleam as she strides towards her post with the confidence and grace of a true professional. The paparazzi in the front row snap their pictures with haste then quickly make an exit. It’s likely, she knows, that they will wait outside for any potential new talent - like a predator with its prey. A former child actress, Darian knows more than anyone how quickly a person can be made, and how quickly a person can be broken.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the fifty-second annual National Comedy Awards. I’m your host, Darian Kensington…”
“And I’m her trusty but ever dopey sidekick, Oliver Pharoah,” He pauses, adamant that the audience will laugh at his poorly thought out joke. “And we’re just so excited to be here, tonight, with all you fantastic people. How about a round of applause for the audience?” He’s just stolen my line, Darian thinks, watching him with eagle eyes. But again she does not react, she simply smiles at Oliver, putting him at ease. For you see, Darian, knows that no one - not even Oliver - in this business, could possibly be as obnoxious at heart.

Ms Kensington watches as the nomination videos play through, each contender trying their utmost to reach the point in their career that they’ve waited for. They deserve it. They know they do.
“And now to present the first award, please welcome two people you all know and love…. Dari and Myself.” Oliver howls at his own joke as Darian hands him the envelope. He mock-agonizes over opening the golden fold before pausing the full recommended thirty seconds. She waits, tapping her foot under the podium in what she believes is either sheer boredom, or pure hatred.
“And the winner is… Georgia Caddick for her work on the children’s show Sketch!” He screeches this, causing both Darian and the audience to flinch. Mr Pharoah has everything - the looks, the charm, all he’s missing is that he clearly is not human, and Darian has always believed this. She kisses Georgia on the cheek and hands her the award. A thin line on her forehead widens as Georgia launches into a speech about everybody she needs to thank - her mother; her father; her brother and three sisters; her cousin, Leah and her boyfriend, Steve; her vocal coach, Lisa; her acting coach, Marianne; the entire staff and students of Westbrook High; her hometown; her loyal, loving, crazy drunken friends; her slightly more sane friends and, finally, her dog, Buster. Although, as Darian has thought time and time again, it would have been quicker for her to say “thank you world” and then leave with her pride, and breath, still intact.
“We’re going to take a short break now, but join us again in just a few minutes.” She explains, turning on her heel and watching the NCA logo projected onto the wall just as instruction told her.
“And, we’re out.” The stage hand grins, brandishing a clipboard at Darian and Oliver as they leave the stage and perch on wobbling wooden chairs behind the curtain.
“Right, brilliant guys, they loved you.” The stage manager enthuses, storming towards the pair. Darian sits still. Her mind is ticking as she digests each word.
“I do have to say, Dari darling, we were fabulous out there.” Oliver shrieks, giving a little hop and walking into the dressing room.
“Quickly, quickly, time for press photos, Darian, time for press photos, we’re working to a deadline here.” A short woman dressed head-to-toe in black crashes past the camera crew, wobbling on her spindly heels with each step. Darian straightens herself up and quickly follows this woman, smiling blankly at each human she passes.
“’Ere, love, lighten up - it might never ‘appen.” One shouts after her, bellowing to himself as he fades into her background.
“It already has,” She silently screams. “It already has.”

Rachel (Webmistress)
PS: This was sort of for my English work but I posted it for a friend to view and the general feedback is that it's good so I'm leaving it up :P

Wales is wet, very wet

OK, so I've just returned from a week in the countryside of South Wales. And never before have I experienced such hideous rain. Day one offered promise. The sun was shining proudly over the buildings (well, shacks) of Ty Gwyn Farm as we pulled up the drive towards the place that we were to call home for the next seven days. Little did we know that this was the last time we would see such weather for several days. Waking up on the morning of day two, we were greeted with thick fog swirling round the tops of the farm buildings and seemingly wrapping us up into a chilling blanket of damp that we were to become entangled in for the majority of the remainder of the week. Cardiff offered us reasonably warm weather and incredible views however at around 70 minutes away from where we were staying, we were forced to spend five days craving sun but being given awful rain instead. The local news didn't change for the entire week and, typically, there were only about 10 houses in the entire village, two of which belonged to the owners of Ty Gwyn. It was that hideous, that a worm came into our (stupidly placed downstairs) bathroom looking for a bit of warmth and shelter from the storm exploding outside. We saw where Roald Dahl was Christened; survived a vicious Dalek attack; ate pizza 5 out of 7 times and killed more spiders and beetles than any of us have ever seen prior to this 'holiday'. We explored a cave in which some (very bizarre, and brave!) people have married; encountered actual dinosaurs; ate stupid amounts of Haribo and settled into the routine of going to bed at midnight, and being woken at 7am when the heating kicked in. We fell in love with Bonnie, the farm dog; we entertained ourselves by discussing holidays we will have in compensation for this one and we laughed hysterically at Sarah Millican's 'bum towel' joke on BBC Radio 2 at 10pm. We achieved nothing this holiday, but in doing nothing, we achieved everything.

Rachel (Webmistress)

Parents, Rabbits, and The Ridings Centre

You’ve got to love families haven’t you? My family are amazing, you know. There’s my mum and dad, now I don’t know if your parents are the same, but mine like to claim they’re not insane, when they clearly are. For instance, I walked into the kitchen the other day and my mum was in there with three boiled eggs - well, the eggs were on the counter, she wasn’t standing to talking to them or anything, they weren’t helping her make the tea - and she was just standing there so I walked up to her and just went “What are you doing?” and my mum, in all seriousness, said back to me “I was watching Jamie Oliver the other day, and he told me to do this…” and she picked up one of the eggs and proper smashed it on the counter. Who gives that out as advice? My dad, on the other hand, is probably the more sane of the two but at the same time he’s a bit more mad. We’ve got a new rabbit and we bring her into the house to let her have a bit of a run about in the living room so she gets used to us and my dad didn’t like her at first - she’s called Dusty - and he didn’t like her. But one day, he decided he did like her and our rabbit’s quite lively so she doesn’t like people stroking her much but for some reason, she let him. And he just sat there for about half an hour stroking her. The only thing is, though, through the new rabbit, I’ve pretty much learnt what sort of parent he must have been when I was a toddler. Because, we brought her in a few days ago and she kept trying to chew the phone cable round the side of the sofa next to the wall and I was the only one looking after her. I was trying to keep the cable out of her reach so she couldn’t chew it but she’d started clawing at the carpet too so I knew we had to move the sofa out so I could move her but no one would help me move the sofa out because obviously I couldn’t let go of the cable to do it myself otherwise she’d chew it. My dad, in all serious and helpfulness walked up to me, leant slightly over me and went to the rabbit “No, no, no, naughty, you don’t eat that, naughty” and then walked off! But my dad’s scared of flying, like seriously terrified of flying, he’s only ever flown twice - once was on the way to Disneyland Paris, once was on the way back - and it didn’t go well. There were four of us going, me, my mum, my brother and him but the seats were only in rows of three so he had to sit two rows behind us. My dad, terrified of flying, got seated on a row with a middle aged man and his young son, about 8 years old, who, halfway through the flight, started discussing what would happen if terrorists bombed the plane and how we would all either die, or escape through chutes on the edge of the plane. My dad (to put it polietly) crapped himself. But he is, my dad’s scared of flying and we had the rabbit out in the run in the garden a week or two ago and an aeroplane went overhead and she just stopped dead still and didn’t move for about 5 minutes. And I’ve figured out why my rabbit and my dad get on so well, they’re both scared of flying. I’ve figured it out, they’ve been having secret meetings about it, plotting ways to make sure we only ever go on family holidays in this country as opposed to somewhere that doesn’t just rain for a week and make us wish we’d stayed at home. My dad’s not just scared of flying though, he absolutely hates the idea of people touching his hair, absolutely hates it. It’s not even like he’s got good hair though, his hair is literally the hair equivalent of a toilet brush, it’s nothing special. And ever since my auntie said it a few years ago, it’s become more and more obvious that his hair is the exact same as Simon Cowell’s. It’s ironic really, my dad’s called Simon too. Anyway, we were on a family outing a few weeks ago to Howarth aka home of the Bronte sisters and we’d been round the village and up a massive hill and that was about it really. And we were on our way back to where we’d parked when two teenage girls came rushing across the road, one went “Oh my God, we’re so rubbish at crossing roads” while the other went “Oh, we’re so cool!” which to me, was hilarious. How can you be rubbish at crossing roads? You know, unless each time you leave the house you get run over, you can’t be in any way rubbish at crossing roads. But even better, how does being rubbish at crossing roads make you cool?! Anyway, these girls hurried off down a back street and we kept walking and eventually we had to walk past two pubs, one on each side of the road, straight opposite each other, and we just kept walking as we had been doing. And there were two sort of gangs of drunken men, one at each pub, having a slanging match literally over the road to each other and as we passed, they just stopped, suddenly stopped. And then I genuinely heard someone call after my dad, “He’s got hair like Simon Cowell’s”

But it’s people like that that make the world such a brilliant place, isn’t it? I was in The Ridings shopping centre in Wakefield with my friend Beth a while ago and it’s not the classiest places anyway, you know. It’s one of those places where everything smells like wee and there’s almost a guarantee that every other shopper either is, or knows, a Netto employee cast off. But this particular outing was one to remember. We were there with my mum and brother but they’d disappeared off by themselves. Myself and Beth got on an escalator. Now normally, there’s a rule on an escalator that if you don’t know the person or people in front, you leave a step, isn’t there? It’s very rare that you’ll get on an escalator and a random stranger will get on behind you and think “Oh yes, I want to go and get reallllly close to that person in front”. But because it was Wakefield, because it was a disastrous outing, the person getting on behind us conveniently forgot about this rule. This bloke got on straight behind us, he was one of those people that look young and old, and fat and slim all in one, you know the sort. He’s there in this awful green t-shirt and jeans with a raincoat and a massive great rucksack, which looks dodgy in itself. But then he looked overly dopey and he had a beard that clearly wasn’t intended to even be there, he just couldn’t be bothered to shave it off or keep it neat. And he got on, and stood literally right behind Beth. We got off at the top of the escalator and me and Beth went up to the Marks and Spencer’s café to meet my mum and brother and this bloke slunk off in another direction and we didn’t see him again. Later, Beth and I were waiting by the lifts again for my mum and brother and we were just watching our fellow shoppers walking by. The very same man as the man from the escalator walked up to a closed, boarded up shop front, plonked himself on the floor, reached into his rucksack, pulled out, and ate, a Gregg’s sausage roll - while sitting on the floor. Shoppers were having to walk in massive semi circles to get past him and everything. But it’s not just Wakefield city centre that’s classy, no, most of the towns near me are. I went into Castleford the other day. Never again. I left feeling positively upper class. There’s something wrong isn’t there when the classiest establishment in a whole town, is a Gregg’s. What makes me laugh, is that people that live there affectionately call it ‘Cas Vegas’. And right next door, they’ve got ‘Ponte Carlo‘. You couldn’t make something like that up could you? You’ve got to love these places purely because of the comedy value they offer. I mean, during this outing to Wakefield, I encountered a sign stuck up in the window of a pound shop saying, “Socks and Underwear: £1” - who buys their socks and underwear from the Poundshop? I remember getting changed in P.E. and I’ve never been a pervert or anything but occasionally you’d notice other people’s underwear and you’d often see 16 year old girls wearing fake Eeyore knickers and a matching bra, or underwear with pictures of bears and dolls on them or something like that and you’d just wonder where on earth those monstrosities came from. Now I know. You’ve got to have given up to go and buy your underwear from the Poundshop, haven’t you. I couldn’t help but wonder if Sausage Roll Man had just bought his entire get up from there. “Favourite shops? I quite like the Poundshop, and I bought some ace shoes from The Leather Shop the other day.” Urgh, I hate that shop. It’s that one where it sells literally only products made from leather and the sort of people that go in there are the sort of people that have covered their entire houses with zebra and tiger print furniture despite the fact that next month they’ll be 95. We’ve got one of those in Wakefield, too. To be honest, I think Beth summed up the day best when she said “Why does nobody here have any teeth?” The scary thing was, she was right - every single person that walked past had at least one tooth missing.

Rachel (Webmistress)