"Smile" by J.S. Douglas

Pen slipped on the mask, pressing the temporary adhesive against her skin. She tied the silken strings around the back of her head, draping her wavy, black hair over them. She straightened her skirt and nudged the mask up. Her world narrowed as the mask crowded her peripheral vision.

“I can do this,” she told herself in her bright customer-service voice. Her masked face in the mirror reflected an unwavering grin.

Pen flung open the door, the gray light of early morning illuminating a perpetual flow of grinning people, people, people, shuffling along the sidewalk.

Some wore stiff masks like hers, their faces screwed up in a rictus of grinning lips and deep smile lines set against white, unmoving plastic. The Stiffs took meek steps, giving way to those with second skins. Their masks were so perfect as to be indiscernible from their true faces. The only tell was their strained grins or unlined foreheads.

Pen shuffled into the flow. The travelers barely gave an inch.

Five sweaty, uncomfortable blocks later, her chin tickled as the adhesive loosened. She darted and dodged into her office building and ducked into the bathroom. As she patted her skin dry with paper towels, she dug in her pocket for more adhesive. Popping the top, the slightly chlorinated smell of glue filled her nostrils.

She grimaced as she swiped the stuff onto her skin. She pressed her mask back into place and counted under her breath.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

She gave it a tug. The mask clung to her face, her skin stretching as the glue did its job. Pen tried to arrange her face beneath the mask to match her reflection. She fake-smiled. The skin beneath her mask pulled tighter.

She walked out of the bathroom and stepped into the elevator. Jammed shoulder to shoulder in a gray box, Pen avoided eye contact. When the elevator dinged for her floor, she stepped out, plodded across corporate-blue carpet, and slid into a gray cube.

The phone’s red call light blinked.

Blinked.

Blinked.

“Ready to get started, Penny?” her supervisor’s voice sliced through the air, cold and belittling.

“Yes,” murmured Pen.

The air around her grew colder as she felt her supervisor’s disappointment. Pen tried her reply again.

“Yes!” she exclaimed in her customer service voice. She didn’t look at her supervisor. Instead, Pen sat down in her gray chair and picked up her beige headset, jamming it over her ears.

Another thing pressing against her head.

Pain sliced through her skull.

She pushed the “Accept” button.

“Hello, thank you for calling Agnosty International. How may I help you today?”

The day wore on. A blur of falsetto tones. Her bright words decorated the gray air around her, filling it up until there was hardly any room to breathe.

The afternoon rolled around, and the words pressed against her mask, against her skin. Sweat puddled under her chin, loosening the adhesive. Her headache thumped against the hard shell. Her exoskeleton.

Pen’s voice faltered, drifting to a real, exhausted tone.

Her mask migrated across her face, sliding to the right. Her limited vision narrowed, drawing the wall of her cube in flat lines.

Pen’s racing heart sent shocks to her throat, narrowing it along with her vision.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked aloud. She knew the answers. Bills, expectations, obligation. Being a “good member of society.”

“But really, why?” she thought or said aloud; she wasn’t sure.

“Excuse me?” asked the muffled voice at the end of the line.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Pen murmured. “Is this a real person?” she wondered. “Who is real?”
The mask slipped again, covering both of her eyes.

The world blanked. The person still spoke, but she couldn’t hear their words.

“I have to go,” Pen’s voice echoed in her mask, jamming spikes into her head. She removed the headset.

Stillness filled her. The gray murmur of the other reps muffled by her wonky mask. Closing her eyes, she saw blue and red sparkles zipping across her lids. Her eyelashes scraped at the mask’s interior. She tried to sit completely still.

“Penny!” Her supervisor’s voice jostled her. Pen jolted up and adjusted her mask. The world came into focus, the gray walls.

The phone.

Her dangling headset.

She turned toward the voice. Her supervisor’s skintight mask heaved into view. Faint lines showed her where the mask ended and the supervisor’s hairline began.

Pen squinted at the woman, her headache clamping onto her forehead.

“What happened there, Penny?”

A smile gleamed from that face. Pen’s stomach churned. She could hear impatience bubbling up behind the false brightness.

“I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.”

“You’re sick?”

“I have a migraine.”

“Time to go home, then.”

“Right.”

“Here,” her supervisor handed her something. “For tomorrow.”

Penny looked down at the tube of superglue. Then, up to her supervisor. The smile didn’t falter. The eyes, glinting with impatience, crinkled in permanent pleasure. Penny pocketed the tube.

“See you tomorrow.”

The next morning, Pen slipped the mask on, pressing the adhesive against her skin. She tied the silken strings around the back of her head, draping her wavy, black hair over them. She straightened her skirt and nudged the mask up. The superglue tightened.

She watched her reflection in the mirror through the delighted eyeholes. The smile lines along her face stretched picture-perfect and would remain in place for days. Her skin prickled with sweat. A headache loomed in the back of her skull.

Her grinning mask bobbed in a river of smiles. Someone stepped on Pen’s foot as she pushed her way down the busy sidewalk. Another mask elbowed her as it pushed off the sidewalk and into a large, beige building. Her smile never faltered, even when she tripped and scraped her hands bloody. She pushed herself back to her feet, grins swimming past. Pen’s unchanged face smiled back, her steps taking her bloody hands and bruised knees into her office building.
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Pen’s grinning head bobbed to the beat of red drops dripping against foyer tile. 

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J.S. Douglas is a horror author living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, daughter, dog, and a growing collection of fish. She has several short stories published in both online and print publications. Her works most often address the topics she knows best: monsters, existential dread, ghosts, and the everyday horrors of existence

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