With the exception of only a few tricks a human being can make, I reckon there is nothing as lethal as a good smile can be. There is just something irresistible about a beautiful smile, so much that all sense dissipates from the mind of the beholder upon the sight of one.
The exceptional use of a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and overall care and guarding of one’s set of teeth are just some of the few tricks that make for a seductive smile. Hence why, apart from the concern for good oral health, some people invest their time and money to enhance their teeth—only so that they can afford the cutest of smiles too. These things that we find to be extraneous ornamentations like plating some of their teeth with gold is one of the things other people resort to in order to beautify their smiles and it oftentimes serves the purpose. Well, at the very least when it is not overdone.
Please Don’t ask me to Smile More – A Creative Nonfiction by Winnie Wekesa, Kenya
It is only a pity that no matter how cute a smile can be, there is no telling for certain what lurks beneath it. It can be just about anything. It can be merriment and vivacity. It can be love or lust. It can be hatred or anger. And yet again, it can be some other feeling. Smiles can be used to enshroud pain, a lethal yearning for revenge, or just about any other villainous intent. I bet it’s okay for me to say a smile can be a vehicle for the advancement of one’s own interests. And yet even after I have shown here, the darker side of what should not be veiling anything but elegance, magnificence, and grandeur, it still would, just as it always has, fool even the best of us. You probably are muttering how ironic that is. Nonetheless, it may as well be. By the way, I find it completely moronic of us. Isn’t it?
Quite an alarming number of betrayals have been proven to have never been foreseen, because how else would you have even the tiniest grain of suspicion that sabotage is probable or in the pipeline when the enemies, more often, front their contempt with warm smiles?
Smiles have led to the ruination of many alliances. It has been so since most probably the beginning of time. It still is the case to this day. What I find most fascinating about a frown is that it is hardly ever used for deception.
Whenever disaster befalls as a result of sabotage, in any given aspect of our lives, we tend to cast our eyes towards our foes whose stance is unquestionable and suspect it to be a precipitate of their villainous intents, while oblivious or naive to the fact that our deadliest and most advantaged enemies are usually among us, infiltrating our safe spaces while veiling their scorn with convincing smiles.
Motherhood: A Lesson in Self-Denial – A Creative Nonfiction by Oluwakorede Obaditan, Nigeria
Smiles are supposed to be an exhibition of love and affection, but it’s saddening how confusing they can be when you are someone with issues of trust and are always trying to decipher what could be veiled underneath. Oftentimes, people smile the widest when they are expecting something from the other person. But that doesn’t necessarily signify affection. I needn’t even emphasize what that simply goes to show. I mean, really, it is a no-brainer.
Nevertheless, I think that of all the gestures a person can ever create with their face, a smile is the grandest. Nothing beats a good smile. The warmth and trust the sight of one generates is immeasurable. That’s what makes it a lethal weapon if you were to worm your way into someone’s heart or to have them let their guard down so as to undetectably await an opportune moment to pounce because regular and well-timed smiles compound trust. But when they aren’t well-timed, formed reservedly, and shown sparingly, they can give off some pretty creepy vibes. Nobody wants to have anyone smiling at them all the time for no apparent reason. It is why anyone who drifts through life smiling at everyone is considered to be a complete fool. And when smiling at every living and non-living thing is not in their nature, and they at least smile excessively at a certain person, it could, among many things, mean that they are sucking up to the other person because of some selfish need or some yearning for validation, or favoritism over the others particularly in some group settings. The irony is that when smiling is done in excess, the eventuality is often that it can grow to be utterly annoying and cause discomfort. There has to be some art to it. Too much of anything, no matter how good that thing can be, goes to become bad. Heck yeah, even too much good can be bad. Sugar tastes sweet. But if not used in moderation, it can spoil what should have been some good-tasting edibles. Take salt or spices for instance, if not sprinkled sparingly, they can spoil the entire dish. The same basic tricks of cooking are applicable to socializing.
The Unmatched Essence of Motherhood – A Creative Nonfiction by Herman Owuor, Kenya
The nicest thing about a smile is that, for the fact that it makes for a good mask of emotion that can be projected on the face, it works wonders whenever we are in no mood or least comfortable opening up to others about our plights. We can endure some nearly unbearable pain with fortitude and calmness and there is nothing else I know that can do better at veiling the chaos within than a smile. The pain can be excruciating, and we may feel like weeping silently or bursting out into sobs, but still, amidst and despite whatever mishmash of turbulent feelings we may be nestling, I have learned that we have in us the incredible fortitude to chin up and plaster a smile that would sell to others that we are at our happiest or doing fine at least.
It is special to be able to smile—incredibly so. Not many of us are still able to. Some probably have forgotten how to smile and feel strange having to form a smile because it has been so long since they had anything to smile about. There is not much to smile about as of late. It is therefore special to afford to smile, notwithstanding how trivial the cause of a smile may be, so long as it still manages to move one to smile.
The Rudiments of Maternity – A Creative Nonfiction by Carmi Philander, South Africa
Obviously, it would be farther from the truth if my encapsulation were that all smiles are bad. It’s people who are, and there’s no hope of redemption for us. But if we could smile just a little bit more, and while at it do it genuinely, and authentically, doing away with the pretenses, that would probably be our saving grace.
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Mamello Stephen Rotheli hails from Lesotho, Thaba-Tseka in a village called Ponts’eng. He holds an Associate Degree in Broadcasting (Radio & Television) and writes fiction and creative non-fiction. He has completed a novel that he hopes to publish in the near future. He now writes movie scripts with the dream of breaking into the South African television industry as a scriptwriter.
