Unsurprisingly, it fit snugly around her face. On the side, she noticed a lever, but also a strict safety instruction – the lever was not to be touched by a female. That night, she had her servants place it on her face, and slowly pull the lever. As the lever was pulled, her face slowly stretched, and began to cause her increasing amounts of pain. By half-pull of the lever, she had already begun to make whining and squeaking noises, clearly in immense suffering. It was unclear how much longer she would hold out. Nonetheless, she insisted on continuing the procedure. By the time she was done, her face had turned a bright red. She went to the mirror, and lightly prodded her face. Alas, the mechanism had proven itself entirely useless. The next month had, of course, been filled with various exercises, remedies, and concoctions for her condition. She had tried a potion with a bitter melon base, a treatment involving leaving hundreds of needles stuck to her face for a week, and many other bizarre, unorthodox practices. It was hopeless. In the end, Tory had decided to wrap her face and keep it hidden until an opportunity presented itself. By pure serendipity, it had happened that the private physician was in town the following week. Obviously, she had considered going to the public health services, but, unfortunately, all the doctors were incredibly rude, and had once left her waiting for ten whole minutes. Since, she had decided to wage war upon them, making poorly
concealed attempts to wreck the organisation that ran it. Now, it was in such a bad state that they could no longer patch up a paper cut. No, her only option was to visit the physician. The physician bore long, pointy ears that poked out from thick, flowing black hair. Her walk had a certain air of authority that reeked of the private sector, the upper class, and body odour. As a child, a silver spoon had been lodged in her voicebox, and as such, she had to speak with every word over-enunciated and elevated multiple octaves, so that the spoon might not be disturbed. Never appearing to be fully comfortable, she always paid the utmost attention to
That night, she had her servants place the mask on her face, and slowly pull the lever. As the lever was pulled, her face slowly stretched
maintaining an ideal posture, which she thought to consist of: a strong and stable lumbar curve; shoulders thrown behind the rest of her body; an elevated chin; and one leg crossed over the other, manicured hands resting on her knee. There was, of course, no conclusive way to prove her services better than the public ones, but she did an excellent job of making it seem as though they were. ‘Miss Samay, I’m afraid that there really are no two ways about it. One’s only option in such dire circumstances is to participate in a very specialised type of skin therapy, which involves covering one’s face with a brown facial mask for a whole week.’ ‘That sounds rather agreeable. But I do have one concern – what shade of brown would this be? Is it a maroon colour, or a more… dark… shade of brown?’ ‘No, no, that would be somewhat, unseemly. It is the brown of… a sequoia tree, perhaps. Although not a sequoiadendron, mind you, perhaps a metasequoia.’ Tory followed the guidelines with utmost care. Regardless of the itching, occasional boils and blisters, she had waited as instructed, and when the week had finished, she found herself more than eager to get the whole ordeal behind her. The moment her time was up, she began to slowly peel at a corner of the mask. Every few seconds, a hair or piece of skin would be pulled off, and she would yelp in pain. Roughly half-way through the removal, her face began to feel sore. It was time for a change of tactics. Steadily counting down from three, she prepared to yank off the rest of the mask. OUCH!
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