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A Different Kind of Smile

My smile is my most faithful disguise. People assume when you are smiling you are full of joy. No one suspects that I constantly feel like a Weight Watchers meeting during Thanksgiving dinner, empty. I smile modestly for teachers when I make the grade, beaming with false pride at mediocre achievements. I smile sweetly for friends when they say my red "Dysfunctional" shirt with fishnet sleeves is not me, confident that they can enlighten me about my true nature.  I smile sadly for family when they point out for the umpteen time that I still can't speak Arabic. The fact that I can speak Latin, French and English is not significant.  I smile bitterly for my parents when they tell me to pray, as I wonder what do I have to pray for.

So I pray. I pray for the day when I will stop smiling and start living. My "happy face" is mostly on during school, where I spend the bulk of my day. Greeting friends with a smile, I assure myself that making another person happy is worth the mounting sorrow.  There have been times when people have become suspicious, stating that I "smile all the time", but the doubts pass assuming that I believe life is a truly spectacular experience. The problem with my pessimistic mentality is the same as a child stating her mother is overweight, it is true.

The world is a dreadful place, full of people who destroy one another in the worst ways to satisfy a primal hunger for blood and pain. People torture both friends and acquaintances emotionally and physically, acting impetuously for days at a time. All I think is these people are no better then the cannibalistic pygmies who murder 2,500 people in Congo daily.

I walk from Physics to Advanced Placement American History giving curious smiles to friends passing by and aristocratic smiles to rivals remembering one of the key phrases of social Darwinism, "kill or be killed". When school is over I can finally stop smiling for strangers and keep on fighting to survive.

After school I go to the Forest Hills Public Library and work as a page, shelving and arranging books in the children's room. The library is where I can be myself, I don't owe anyone a smile, just keep to my work and thoughts of tomorrow. The library is equivalent to an alternate reality, where etiquette and politeness do not have a place. People show their truest sides, placing books wherever they desire leaving no thought for the people who have to put them away. People jeopardize another's job because of their own laziness and inconsideration.

No one smiles at the library; they have nothing to smile about between the homeless, the mentally instable, the obnoxious teenagers and unruly children who saunter through. Leaving the library is both a blessing and a curse, since I am forced to smile and pretend for other spectators, my family.

After three hours, I walk home, exhausted mentally and physically. Although I would like to sit down and relax, I mustn't stop moving or I would never move again. I think I have lost hope, hope that there is something worth smiling for every time I see another suicide bombing in Israel or another family's home bulldozed in Palestine. Even though everything I see is conflicting against the impulse, I smile, wondering when they will notice my smile never reaches my eyes.

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