I sat down to play the piano after work, but then the janitor walked in. 

“Hi Chief,” he said.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Livin the dream. How long have you been playing?”

“Since 2011. Why?”

“Oh, just curious. I’m a bit creative myself. Thought I was goin to be a mask maker in Hollywood when I got older.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah. I made my first mask in 1985. Still have it. Keep it in the closet, in the darkness, so it can’t scare my wife.

“How did you make it?”

“Went to the costume store. Bought synthetic hair. The real stuff is too expensive. I used rice for maggots around the eyes. Problem was, the whole face became distorted with heat.”

“That might work,” I said. “The more distorted, the scarier. You know Jackson Pollock?”

“Yeah.”

“He denied the accident.”

“That’s what I did. When I heated up the mask, air bubbles formed in her tongue. Dr. Sylvia became Dr. Saliva. Her brain was exposed and I filled in the details with paints. Created a back story where she was a beautiful doctor who reengineered her body to look like someone else for the government. The bio experiment went bad and she became insane. Then the government locked her up and fed her through a hole in the wall. She got out from time to time and murdered beautiful women because she envied their beauty.”

“That’s an interesting story,” I said. “I’d like to see your mask?”

“Really? I’ll snap a few photos and send them to you in an email.”

“Lookin forward to it.”

“Nice talkin to you, Chief.”