Aya studied her face in the mirror, taking in her dull eyes and drooping mouth silently. The lines around her eyes betrayed her age, her skin a pasty yellow. Picking up her dark lipstick, Aya began the painstakingly slow progress of painting over the plainness of her face – another day of her eternal masquerade.

She stood, holding out a hand to steady herself as her legs became weak. She sighed and, for the fifth time that week, reached for the white bottle that sat on her nightstand. Standing there in her empty bedroom, Aya began to wonder where it all went wrong. Surely something happened before that day she woke up and couldn’t smile. One does not simply stop smiling.

Stroking the bottle with her delicate fingers, she remembered when she used to play the piano. Why had she stopped? The soft melody of regret played through her mind, the sullen notes piercing through her memory to find naught but an empty space. Nothing, no one, nothing. There was nothing to remember.

It had always confused her how she could wake up one day and be perfectly fine – happy, even – and then another she would not be able to get out of bed. Confused and worried. Worried that perhaps one day she would let go of the happy days and be forever in that state of mysterious unhappiness – of illness. Was that it? Was she sick?

Aya sat back on her bed, looking across the room and into the mirror opposite her, taking a deep breath, Aya twitched and once again attempted moving her mouth into the peaceful smile she once wore. Her lips quivered, her eyes watered – but all she could manage was a slight upside down arch. Her world was no longer rainbow.

It was that of a darkened black.

The bottle opened, and the little white pills spilled out onto Aya’s hand. She swirled them around with her finger, remembering the way she used to do that with charcoal on white paper. Yet another thing she gave up. When did she get like this?

Aya wondered what had stopped her from swallowing the pills on the previous days. It didn’t matter, whatever it was – it wouldn’t stop her now. She took a deep breath and raised her hand to her mouth.

“Mummy?”

The small girl stood in the doorway, a teddy bear hanging limply by her side from her left hand. Aya looked up at her daughter, before turning back to the pills in her hand. She tipped them back into the bottle.

“Mummy’s coming darling.”

Aya stood and began her masquerade.