The Drapes Come
by Charles Dizenzo

THE STORY: When Barbara comes home from school she finds her rather mousy mother still waiting patiently for the new living room drapes to arrive—the final touch which will make the room (and her life) complete.

Teenaged Barbara is as forceful and assertive as her mother is retiring, and she has some caustic comments to make on the way in which her mother has let herself be imposed upon by others.

But then lights flash and whistles whistle—and suddenly Mrs. Feirs becomes the brash and bumptious one—berating her now shy daughter for not being more aggressive.

These lightning transformations in personality occur repeatedly, as first one then the other shifts explosively from meek to overbearing.

In the end we are left with a disturbing but engrossing revelation of deep-seated duality—how we see ourselves versus how others see us, what we think we are as opposed to what others consider us to be.

The drapes do arrive at last, but with them comes the realization that such petty and selfish obsessions are the stuff that alienation is made of, the egocentricity which is all of us and which raises a barrier against meaningful communication.