Friday, 5 April 2013

Inventions


We saw a man smiling to himself, watching a laptop and  thought it’s a great invention: the smile.  What a wonderful piece of art is created each time we are content, every time we are touched.  Girls smile when they talk of surprise gifts for their boyfriend’s birthday; retired folk smile because they get to watch the sunrise then go back to bed if they choose; children smile when they break wind; dogs smile when they run until they are breathless.  Perhaps you are smiling now as you read this? 

We saw the opposite to this also.  Well perhaps not the opposite but let’s not be pedantic.  He was a builder in his fifties; had been since his teens perhaps and he had a face like crumpled baking paper.  His face was so sunken into his skull that it may as well have been at the bottom of the sea.  His stomach hung over his belt like an overhang of snow on a rooftop and he was as grey as his lungs.  We’re fairly sure he was the sort of man who didn't really see the point of anything much.  He would be miffed by things like puppies; Christmas; the excitement of a haircut; chocolate sprinkles.

We’re not sure what would get that face lit up again, for it must have been, once upon a time when he was a kid.  But somehow we found this just as beautiful…the wonder of the frown.

C.P.S courtesy of inside Shadows protected by copyright 2013

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