by Nick DiChario

The mayor woke in the morning to find that his face had changed overnight. The new face didn’t look anything like him, but he had a strange feeling that it belonged to him in some way.

He dampened a washcloth with warm water and scrubbed the face with coarse soap. After a few minutes, the face began to fray around the edges, and in about half an hour he was able to scrape off the gummy surface and find his own face underneath.

“Jesus, that’s weird as hell,” he said to himself, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He was running late. He dressed, hopped in the car, and drove to City Hall.

He felt better when he got to the office and found that his entire staff had experienced the same phenomenon; they’d all woken up with different faces and had removed them before coming to work.

“Mayor, it’s crazy,” Gabby said. “Mine came off in the shower with a loofah brush, but it took a while.”

Another person said, “It’s funny that I wasn’t afraid. The face felt almost natural in a way. Like it belonged to me.”

“I was a bit shaken at first,” admitted one of the volunteers, an older fellow who worked on voter registration. “I woke up with the face of a woman! But I didn’t panic. I just took my time and got it off with a scrubbing pad.”

Someone turned on a television, and all the local news stations were covering the story. Apparently, everyone in town had experienced the same thing. They’d all woken up with new faces.

“Well, it’s on the news,” Gabby said. “You’ll need to take a position on this, Mayor. Shall I schedule a press conference for you?”

“No,” said another staffer. “I think that’s a mistake.”

“Really?” asked the mayor. “Why?”

“Too soon,” replied the young man. He was one of the new volunteers. The mayor couldn’t remember his name. “We need to find out all we can about what’s happening before we go public with a statement.”

“Can we get away with that?” the mayor asked.

The staffer shrugged. “Why not? Better to be slow and right than fast and wrong.”

The mayor nodded. “I like that idea.”

Gabby frowned. “What do we tell the press, then?”

The mayor thought about it. “Write up a press release for me. Say we’re investigating the situation, and I’ll hold a news conference tomorrow. Tell them it’s too soon to draw conclusions. We’re still fact-finding.”

“They’ll accuse you of hiding,” Gabby said.

“Or they could see it as being responsible,” countered the young staffer.

“It’s only been one morning,” the mayor said. “Let’s wait and see what happens next. Today, I want everyone to work the phones, reach out to your community contacts, and find out what’s going on at ground level. We’ll reconvene first thing in the morning to see where we stand.”

• • •

The next day. Alarm clocks rang. Dogs barked. Coffee pots perked in homes all around town. Everyone woke to another new face staring back at them in the mirror, a different face from the previous morning. The faces peeled off as they had the day before. The mayor and his staff sat in the war room with everything they’d learned from their news sources and local outreach.

The young man who’d spoken up yesterday said, “I found out some interesting things. First, as far as we know, it’s only happening in our town. And the faces aren’t sticking to children, only adults.”

“Sticking. That’s a good word for it,” someone said.

“Second,” the staffer went on, “We don’t know where the faces are coming from, but according to all the people interviewed so far, they feel like they’re coming from inside, not outside. They all recognize something in the faces, even if they look completely different.”

“I think that’s true,” the mayor said. “That’s how I feel about mine. I’ll bet that’s why people aren’t afraid.”

Everyone in the room agreed.

“One last thing,” said the young man. “There’s no pattern as to who gets what face: young, old, male, female, black, white, and everything in between.”

“I talked to my contact on the school board,” said another volunteer. “So far, kids don’t seem to be freaking out over this. They say they can still recognize their parents and think the faces are kind of funny.”

“Funny,” the mayor said. “Jesus, this is all beyond bizarre.” He turned to Gabby. “What did you find out?”

Gabby looked through her notes. “I talked to some people at the hospital. So far, nobody has come forward with any signs of physical or mental distress over this. And the police chief says the emergency line has been quiet. But I’m concerned. No one has any idea what’s causing the faces to appear, how to prevent it, why it’s only happening here, or how long the phenomenon will last.”

“Does that matter?” the mayor asked.

“Don’t you want to know?” Gabby replied. “I certainly do. I think we should partner with our community leaders and form a task force right away. Every minute we hesitate is a minute lost.”

The mayor went to the coffee station and filled his mug. “Have the news teams covered all this ground already?”

“Yes,” said the young staffer. “We’re watching every minute of news coverage. They don’t know any more than we do. It’s all guesswork.”

The mayor sipped the hot coffee, puckered his lips, and hesitated. “So, all we have are questions …”

“Mayor,” Gabby said, “we need to schedule a press conference and confirm what we know, even if it’s mostly questions.”

“Why?” asked the young staffer. “No one is afraid. People aren’t in a panic. Maybe the play here is to sit tight. Everyone feels safe right now. Why mess with that?”

Gabby shook her head. “I don’t like it. The town is looking to this office for leadership. We’re getting phone calls. People want to hear from their mayor. How are we going to handle this situation? That’s what they want to know.”

“I wish we had some solid answers,” the mayor said. “Questions without answers are risky. I think the young man is right. What’s your name?”

“Ivan.”

“Ivan, I like your insights here.”

Gabby stood up and crossed her arms. She was a slender woman with pin curls, a firm chin, and serious eyes that gave no quarter. “Really? This could escalate into a crisis at the snap of a finger. You can’t keep quiet about it.”

The mayor nodded. “I know, I know, I see your point, but I also see Ivan’s point. I don’t think we need to come out and say anything just yet. It won’t hurt to spend another day gathering intel so we can sound more informed when we do go on the record.”

“And what if we don’t have any answers tomorrow?” Gabby asked.

The mayor shrugged. “Then we go with what we have. Tell the press I’ll meet with them in the morning. I’ll work on what I want to say all day today. Don’t disturb me unless there’s a breakthrough or something urgent comes up.”

• • •

The mayor sat in his office, pretending to write while browsing Amazon.com for raincoats. After a couple of hours, nothing urgent came up. There were no breakthroughs. He decided to go home and see if he could focus on writing.

By four o’clock, he felt lonely. He sent Gabby a message, inviting her to come over for dinner and help him refine his talking points. He put a spaghetti casserole in the oven, opened a bottle of Chianti, and started in on it before she arrived.

“How far have you gotten?” Gabby asked, removing her jacket.

He handed her a glass of wine. “Nowhere, Gabs.”

“Nowhere? You’ve been working on it all day.”

“I’ve thrown out a thousand things,” he fibbed. “Every word I write sounds like drivel.”

She sat down with the glass of wine and frowned. “It’s because you never have any of your own opinions anymore. You let everyone else tell you what to think. Like Ivan. You accept their ideas, or you don’t accept them, but you never bother to formulate your own viewpoints.”

“That’s a mean thing to say.”

She sighed. She drank some wine. “I’m sorry.”

“Can you smell the casserole?”

“Yes. It smells good.”

“It’s a Stanley Tucci recipe.”

“Wait.” She put down the wine glass and stood up. “I’m not sorry. I meant what I said.”

“Come on, Gabs, don’t be like that.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Leaving? Why? You just got here. Aren’t you going to help me with our statement to the press?”

“No. I want you to do it yourself. You’re a smart man. I know you are. I’ve seen it. We don’t get many chances in life to prove ourselves or show the world what we’re made of. This is your time, this is your chance, and I want you to take it.”

“You don’t understand. I have high political aspirations. I’m in line for lieutenant governor. I can’t afford to take risky positions. I need to think about the future.”

“What about the here and now?”

“You’re here. You’re now. Stay with me. I need you.”

“Not tonight. You have work to do.”

Gabby pecked him on the cheek, pulled on her jacket, and walked out the door.

• • •

The next morning, the mayor was glad to see a different face in the mirror. He hadn’t written a word all night, Gabby had depressed him, and he hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything but the bottle of Chianti until he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Now he was hungover. He didn’t think he could master the chore of pulling off his face, so he decided not to bother. Screw it. He’d make do with the new one. The face he’d woken up with was younger and more handsome than his original anyway. If he had to talk to the press, doing it with a different face suddenly seemed like a fine idea. He could turn it into a joke. Get the reporters laughing. That might distract them from the tough questions.

When he got to work, he was surprised to see that almost everyone else in the office had made the same choice.

“Isn’t it odd?” someone said. “I guess we all got tired of taking them off.”

“Yeah,” said another. “That gummy residue takes forever to peel. It has been cutting into my morning routine. Besides, it’s kind of fun to wear a new face.”

“For me, I was like, whoa, I’m gonna be a man for a day and see how that feels!” This was a young woman, one of the volunteers who worked the phones.

Everyone laughed. The mayor felt relieved. But he was disappointed in Gabby. She hadn’t worn her new face.

“Mayor,” she said. “You can’t go in front of the media looking like that. Have you forgotten about your press conference? What were you thinking?”

“We should cancel it,” Ivan suggested.

“Cancel it?” she replied. “We can’t do that. The people of this town have been waiting three days to hear an official statement. They want to see their mayor.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ivan asked. “We’ve been watching the news all morning. Almost everyone has been wearing their new face today. The TV stations are interviewing people on the streets. They’re thinking they might just rather ride it out until the phenomenon passes. In the meantime, they want to enjoy it.”

The mayor grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on the edge of a desk. “What about the phones? Are people still calling in?”

“No,” said the girl with the face of a man. “The phones have stopped ringing.”

“We can’t just let people walk around with fake faces,” Gabby said. “We need to form an official policy around this. It’s a matter of public health and safety. What if there’s a medical emergency, or an accident, or a crime, or any number of things where we need to identify people? We must be prepared for the worst-case scenarios. We should have declared a state of emergency from day one.”

Ivan shook his head. “The polls tell a different story. The mayor’s approval ratings are up. People love the way he’s handling the situation.”

“He isn’t handling anything!” Gabby shouted.

“Look, Gabby,” the mayor said. “You should give me some credit for my strategic approach to this. The press wanted a statement, but I said no, let’s wait and see. That turned out to be the right call. I think we can all agree on that. I don’t see any reason to change course now. The numbers don’t lie.”

• • •

After two days of positive news reports and no major setbacks, the mayor’s ratings jumped a few more points. Gabby wrote him a speech addressing the issue that he hadn’t asked for. He glanced at it, thanked her, and added it to a pile of papers on his desk. The next day, she didn’t show up for work, so he called her cellphone.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“At home.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think you know.”

“C’mon,” he said. “Lighten up.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t know who you are anymore. Do you?”

“Listen, Gabs, our numbers are good.”

“Don’t contact me again,” she said. “We’re over.”

• • •

The days and weeks passed.

People kept letting their faces change.

Other than a few minor occurrences of mistaken identity, there wasn’t much fallout.

The mayor called and messaged Gabby occasionally to see if she’d softened toward him, but she never answered.

One night, he went home and stared at himself in the mirror. He hadn’t been able to forget Gabby or what she’d said to him on the phone. Was it true she didn’t know who he was anymore? Did he know?

“Isn’t that odd?” he mumbled into the mirror. He couldn’t remember what he looked like before the new faces began appearing. How many days had passed? How many new faces had he worn? He’d lost track.

He dampened a washcloth, took out his coarse soap, and began scrubbing his face. It frayed at the edges, and he peeled it off, but the face underneath it wasn’t his own. Was it yesterday’s face? He scraped off another layer, and another, and another, but he didn’t recognize any of them as his one true face.

It was late. He was tired. But he kept going. He was starting to get frightened. After a few more faces, his arms began to tire, his fingers cramped, and his legs trembled from exhaustion, but he still hadn’t reached his real face – at least, he didn’t think so – and all the scrubbing and peeling had irritated his skin and drawn some blood.

“I’d better stop,” he said. “I’ll try again in the morning.”

He went to bed but couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, trying to picture his real face. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he could look at his photographs. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He leaped out of bed, opened his laptop, and pulled up his Facebook page. In the more recent photos, he was wearing different faces, but when he went farther back, there he was!

He brought his computer into the bathroom and began removing faces. On more than one occasion, he came to a face he thought might be his own. He had to stare at it for a while, but even after holding the laptop up to the mirror, he couldn’t say for sure if it was him, so he kept going. How many different faces had he worn? He was sure not as many as he’d scraped off. Was that even possible? He lost track of time. He felt woozy and needed a break.

He staggered to the living room, grabbed some tissues to dab the blood from his face, and turned on the TV so he could catch his breath and distract himself for a few minutes. He was surprised to see Gabby on screen. Someone from the news station was interviewing her.

“Why have you decided to run for mayor?” the reporter asked.

She looked into the camera. “This town is in the midst of an identity crisis. The mayor is refusing to acknowledge it. It’s true that we all need to wear different faces in our lives. Society demands it of us. But we’re lost if we don’t know who we are, if the faces take over, and we lose ourselves. We must do something before it’s too late.”

“What are your thoughts about the phenomenon appearing for the first time in other towns?”

“It’s spreading. We need to form public policy immediately. Other towns will look to us for leadership, to see how we’ve handled it, and, so far, we’ve handled it poorly, or worse, not at all.”

“You’re wrong!” the mayor hollered at the set. But she wasn’t wrong. The next story was about people panicking because they couldn’t find their own faces. No one knew who they were anymore. They were storming the emergency room at the town’s only hospital and clogging the police department’s phone lines. They were blaming the mayor. They were blaming him.

“It’s not my fault!” he shrieked.

The phone buzzed. He snatched it off the table. It was Ivan.

“Mayor,” said Ivan. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been busy. What do you want?”

“You need to call a press conference right away. Gabby announced she’s running against you for mayor. My sources say she has a lot of support.”

“I can’t,” he replied. He couldn’t find his own face. He knew he never would.

“You don’t have a choice,” Ivan said. “You’ve got to get on top of this before it’s too late.”

He lowered his head. It was already too late. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t … I can’t … I can’t …”