Smile

Not the shortest queue
However, I’m content to wait.

Edging forward my frozen food
Melting quicker than the polar icecaps
As pensioners fumble tokens, long expired
Jostling tartan shopping trolleys
Whilst moaning, moaning, moaning
“It was cheaper last week”
“We should never have joined the European Union.”
“I blame the French”
The queue latch on to this
The French make good scapegoats.

A big beefy woman is on the phone to her mate
“He’s a bastard, he aint coming back, she can have him”
Her son removes an egg from its box,
Staring intently at its brittle brown shell
He has never heard of Newton or gravity
Nevertheless, he is prepared to experiment
She shouts, “Sebastian, don’t you... 
The egg makes a scrunching noise as it hits the hard floor
Its fluid yellow yoke oozes across the fake marble tiles.

At last, my groceries and I arrive at the checkout
I cast a downward glance and then look up
Into a pair of quizzical brown eyes
They rest beneath a mop of bleached blond hair
Slowly, I remember how to smile
The checkout girl returns the greeting
But this is no ordinary smile
It’s a beam of sunlight in a cold grey world
Warm, joyous and optimistic 
It says, “I’m not going to let this shit job get me down”

I know so little about her, yet I feel her joy and her enthusiasm
I know that she will make it through college
And that  life’s tribulations  will never destroy her spirit
I know that this movement of facial muscles that we call smile
Is an outward sign of something deep within
I hope it never leaves her.

She helps me pack my groceries
And we make small talk
I say “adiós” and she flashes me a parting grin
Before turning  to face a fat, angry man who does not smile.





By: Peter Litton