The Girl in the Green Mask

8 min readJun 7, 2021

It was a time of plague and pestilence, and, for Trevor, a time of heartbreak and regret.

He’d dumped his girlfriend at the beginning of March, because he got a really good haircut and thought it might be a good opportunity to fall in love with a lonely girl reading a book by the river, like he always dreamed.

Then the plague arrived. People died. Dating became a public health threat. He realized the haircut wasn’t actually that good. They shut down the hair salons. Eventually, he stopped looking in the mirror.

But Trevor was a resilient creature and, after a scroll through Diana’s Instagram profile revealed that the plague had not stopped his former paramour from dating again, he decided it was time to move on.

He found the girl in the green mask sitting by the river. She was staring at the horizon and holding one of his favorite books, exactly as he envisioned.

“That’s my favorite book,” Trevor said, a half truth. He had many favorite books. His favorite book was usually the one he’d most recently finished.

The girl in the green mask turned slowly to him. Because of the plague, you could never know if someone was smiling. Her eyes, icy and blue, revealed nothing.

“Every book I read is my favorite book,” she said. “I’m annoying like that.”

He took a seat six feet away.

“Thanks for maintaining social distance,” she said, with a hint of sarcasm that meant she took the plague seriously, even if she knew she might get made fun of.

“My friends have been doing indoor dining,” he said. “I’m like, ‘OK guys. Hope Applebees was worth it. Would you like permanent lung damage with your riblet platter?’”

The girl laughed behind the green mask.

“Try our bottomless margaritas,” she said. “They go great with ventilators.”

Trevor ran his fingers through his hair. It was longer. He lingered on his ownmask. It was blue, the same color everyone else wore. The girl’s mask showed a color he had never seen before. A deep, emerald green, that seemed to preternaturally glimmer in the afternoon sun.

“I like your mask,” he said. “It’s so unique. Where’d you get it?”

She put a hand to her mask as if she had forgotten it was there.

“My grandmother,” she said.

“She must be very talented,” he said.

“She was.”

He didn’t ask any more questions. The plague was like that.

The girl looked back toward the river. Trevor glanced at the sun. He was supposed to meet his friends for a socially distanced picnic and was running late.

“Hey, so I’ve never done this before,” he said. “Would you want to go on a Zoom date with me sometime?”

The girl turned and looked at him. He wished he could see her face to know if she was smiling or vomiting or what. He lowered his mask and sent his most non-threatening smile from six feet away.

“Weird time to be alive,” he said.

“I’d like that,” she said. Then she pulled out a cell phone. It was an outdated iPhone, with a spin wheel, the kind they hadn’t made in years. “Text me.”

He gave her his number and she turned back to the river. Trevor suddenly felt very cold.

He didn’t tell his friends about the girl in the green mask. They were all in relationships and thought Zoom dates were awkward, because they couldn’t know what it was like to be single during a plague.

He waited two days, then decided to call her, because it’s a chivalrous thing that might help him stand out against any other lonely fools that had encountered the girl in the green mask. Also, text is an imperfect means of communication and he wasn’t sure if that old phone would crash if he sent an Emoji to help convey his tone.

She answered on the first ring and sounded excited to hear from him. They talked about the plague. He told her he liked working from home, because he didn’t need real pants. She was an essential worker, and had been on the frontlines the whole time. She’d gotten used to wearing the mask. He said he considered her a hero, and he meant it.

They made plans to Zoom the next night.

Trevor brushed his hair and trimmed his stubble. He ironed his checkered button-down and put on a pair of gym shorts. He did not wear shoes.

Her Zoom connection was a little spotty, but she looked beautiful. She’d tied a green ribbon around her hair, the same color as the mask, which to Trevor’s surprise still sat on his face.

“I love your commitment,” he said.

“What?” she said.

He pointed to his face.

“Oh,” she said, delicately touching the mask. “I hadn’t realized.” She looked off camera. “I live around a lot of old people.”

He liked that she cared about old people. The mask complemented her eyes. Made them sparkle. And the conversation was so good that, mask or no mask, he knew he was falling hard. They talked about their favorite books, and how many AP classes they took in high school, and what they remembered about September 11. It was the best first date he’d ever been on. They agreed to Zoom again in two days.

Trevor was telling his best friend Tyler about the girl with the green mask.

“She wore the mask during the zoom date,” he said. “Is that weird?”

“Maybe her head will fall off if she removes it,” Tyler said.

“It’s not like that,” Trevor said.

Tyler shrugged. “She’s just an essential worker, bro.”

“I like that about her,” Trevor said.

The next date was even better. They took Buzzfeed quizzes and both got sorted into Hufflepuff, even though everyone always said they were Ravenclaws. They decided it didn’t matter because they didn’t approve of J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people. Still, they agreed, it would be fun to go to wizard school. At the end of the date he asked her where her favorite sushi restaurant was.

He barely even noticed the green mask.

They Zoomed again. He wondered if he should wear a mask. Maybe this was some kind of bit they were doing. She stepped off camera to answer the door and came back holding a delivery bag. He’d ordered her favorite sushi and had it sent to her as a surprise.

“Figured we could have dinner,” Trevor said. He pulled out a bag. He’d ordered for himself from the same place. Shrimp tempura, because he didn’t like raw fish.

“This is the sweetest thing…” she said.

She took out the sushi, laid it on a plate, then spread out the wasabi and ginger. She picked a piece of tuna with a chopstick and held it up to the camera.

“To an end to this cursed plague,” she said.

“Cheers,” he said.

She put the sushi down and never took a bite. The mask stayed on. Maybe she’s embarrassed to eat on camera, he thought.

The Zoom dates continued. After a few weeks, Trevor laid it all out. He always washed his hands. He maintained social distance. And he’d been tested. He was plague free. They should have a real date. He invited her over to ironically watch old movies.

She looked into the camera.

“Yeah baby,” she said, in a bad British accent, from behind the mask.

She came over and laughed at Austin Powers’ antics, but she never took off the green mask. Instead of kissing goodnight, she rested her forehead on his.

It went on like that for weeks. Eventually, he truly forgot about the green mask. That gleaming emerald piece of silk was as much a part of her as her pale fingers or those icy blue eyes.

He finally took her to meet his friends at a socially distanced picnic.

“You can take the mask off,” his friend Brittany said. “We’re not judgmental.”

“I’m an essential worker,” the girl in the green mask said.

“My apologies,” Brittany said.

They played socially distanced drinking games. At one point, the girl in the green mask got up to take a picture of a tree with her phone. Brittany, buzzed on too many mimosas, sidled up next to Trevor. She did not maintain social distance.

“That’s a creepy iPhone,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

“She’s an essential worker,” Trevor said. “She can’t afford a new version.”

“Why won’t she take her mask off?”

“She wears it to protect us,” Trevor said.

Brittany shrugged.

“I think if she takes the mask off, her head will fall off.”

“It’s not like that,” Trevor said.

Then the girl came back and Trevor spent the evening mad at Brittany.

He walked her home. Fall had arrived. The plague was everywhere, but the leaves made a pleasant crunch beneath their feet.

“Thanks for letting me meet your friends.” the girl with the green mask said. “I hope I passed the audition.”

“Flying colors,” he said, thinking only of the color green.

They lingered on her front steps and held hands, electricity passing between their fingertips.

“Could I kiss you goodnight?” Trevor said.

The girl looked up at him.

“Of course,” she said, presenting the unmasked parts of her face to him. They’d done this before.

“Oh, I meant…” he pointed to his mouth.

She looked up at him, surprised.

“Please,” he said. “Just once.”

“Ok…” she said.

He leaned over, touched the mask and slowly pulled it down to her neck. He stepped back. She smiled, a smile more perfect than he had even expected. A genuine smile that he hoped she saved only for him. He touched her neck lightly, in case her head fell off.

She leaned forward.

When Trevor kissed the girl in the green mask he saw fireworks, then a warmth coursed through his whole body, then briefly, he heard the sounds of all his ancestors crying out in pain, before his mind went totally blank and he blacked out.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her perfect head was still perfectly in place. She put the mask in the pocket of his cardigan, then turned inside.

“Text me,” she said.

Trevor took the long way home. He floated a little. He said hello to every masked stranger he passed. He was feeling great. Until, suddenly, he wasn’t. He struggled to climb the hill to his apartment. He leaned on a stop sign, out of breath. He started coughing. He slipped the green mask on to not raise a scene.

He sat down to rest for a moment.

The police found the body the next morning, partially hidden by fallen leaves.

“You ever seen a mask like that?” said the first officer.

“I’ve never even seen green like that before,” his partner said. “Unnatural.”

“Nothing natural about the plague,” the first officer said.

His partner leaned forward and pulled down the mask. Trevor smiled back, peacefully.

“Guy died happy, though,” he said.

“Only thing that matters,” his partner said.

The only rule of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days is that the story must be posted the same night I started writing it.

The Girl in the Green Mask

Written by Mark Macyk