The Smile by Andee Kinzy

The Smile
by Andee Kinzy

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was born smiling. She smiled at her parents. She smiled at her siblings. She smiled at family, friends, and even strangers.

Her world was full of ups and downs, but she smiled through it all.

She wasn’t the most popular kid in school – she smiled, anyway.

She wasn’t the most beautiful or the smartest – but she still smiled.

And people couldn’t help but smile back.

She learned that if people were smiling, anything could be worked out.

When she grew up, she moved to a Big City. People didn’t smile much there, but she smiled at them. Mostly, they looked right through her. Every now and then, someone would even smile back.

She surrounded herself with smiles.

She did her Art, and smiled because she could. She met a man and smiled when they got married. They had two kids, and the first things they saw when they entered the world, was their Mommy smiling at them.

Now she was a woman, a grown-up.

Not too many grown-ups smile, so the woman played with kids, who were always smiling. She found a few other grown-ups who also smiled and played with them, too.

Time passed and things started changing. The world around her wanted her to act like a grown-up. The kids started getting older and they needed more guidance than ever before. The Daddy started working more. People around her argued. Money disappeared. Decisions needed to be made.

So she started to act like a grown-up. And then something happened: the girl-who-never-stopped-smiling, started smiling less and less.

They moved to a new town. People there smiled, but only if you believed what they believed. Parents there smiled, but only when they were extolling the accomplishments of their own brood.

And kids weren’t smiling so much, anymore. They were too busy with computers, television, video games.

One day, the woman woke up and realized that her smile was completely gone.

She looked for it in her kids. It wasn’t there. She looked for it in her husband. It wasn’t there. She looked for it in the rest of her family, friends, strangers. It wasn’t anywhere.

Then she looked for it in herself.

No smile.

The woman was very sad. She couldn’t figure out what happened to her smile. She missed it terribly.

Without realizing it, she had become the-woman-who-never-smiled.

She decided to look even harder for it. She tried so many things: clubs, classes, gatherings, bonding with nature, cooking. It was nowhere.

Then she tried to find it in other worlds: books, movies, television, food, alcohol. It wasn’t there, either. But these worlds numbed her mind so she didn’t care.

She still had to exist, though. And once she got back to reality, deep down the savage grief would rise up when she least expected it and contort into anger and yelling and the urge to inflict pain on others.

She didn’t want to live like this. Finally, she gave up.

She sat down and didn’t move. She cried a thousand tears.

She cried so many tears that they collected in front of her. Gathered together, they made a little pool.

Looking down, the woman could see her reflection.

She stared at herself for a long time.

The sun’s glare made her squint.

And then she saw it.

For the briefest of seconds, her smile appeared.

She squinted harder, hoping to get a glimpse of it again.

And there it was!

Then, gone.

She tried it again.

Squint, smile, surprise, gone. Squint, smile, surprise, gone.

Then she knew.

Her smile had never abandoned her. She had abandoned it.

She got up and returned home.

The next morning, she stared at herself in the mirror.

Squint.

Smile.

Then she went out to face the world.

She saw her kids first. She faced them with a smile. And they smiled back.

So did her husband and her family and friends and strangers. They all smiled back.

So the woman-who-never-smiled became the woman-who-never-stopped-smiling.

Oh, it was still hard. Having been out of practice for so long, she had to consciously find her smile again every morning. But once she knew it was hidden in her, she never lost it again.

The end.