When You Forget How to Smile

I didn’t even realize I was depressed until I saw his bicycle wheels come to a halt outside my house. The dog was mid-poop and started going ballistic upon seeing his smiling face. It was cloudy and grey as it had been all week. Perhaps I had been feeling as bright as the weather.

Him? The sun seemed to shine from his blond hair and smile.

“Oh God, why are you here?” I didn’t even attempt to silence the dog as the man on the bike eagerly waved me towards him.

“Great to see you too! Come on, let’s go for a ride!” He was just as excited as Mr. Puddles.

“I don’t even have a bike!” Why was I trying to force him away? I had to get back to cleaning the sock fuzz from between my toes. I had a lot to do today! In fact… what else was I doing? I mean there was that whole list of things I was supposed to get done…

He wasn’t bothered as he got off his bike and wheeled it towards me with the miniature schnauzer nipping at his heels.

“Then we’ll walk.”

There was really no point to say no. The first time I’d met him was just as mysterious as he was. It was fifteen years ago and I was living how every ambitious child envisioned their future to unfold. I hadn’t seen a shower in a week, my bed was my best friend and I decided only to stagger from it when the sun had almost set so I could numb myself by staring at a flashing television screen and eating ice cream sandwiches. It wasn’t long until the doctors gave me some happy pills and in my desperation to escape myself, I tried them.

That first evening I popped one in my mouth, I found myself in a chinatown, driving down a dark creepy alley, unable to escape what was already in motion. Suddenly, I found myself outside of the car and when I turn around he was there. He walked toward me, step by step a fear struck deeper and deeper into my heart. I knew he was going to kill me and there was nothing I could do or say to stop this man in the brown leather jacket.

Then I saw the haunting smile, spreading from cheek to cheek that stabbed into my heart like a knife.

Making a fist, he pulled back his arm and punched me straight between the eyes.

I woke up from that dream, but the nightmare of my fluctuating depressive states was something I was still learning to rise above.

After our first encounter, I didn’t see him again for a long time. Every now and then I knew he was around, just sensing he was watching me. It was freaky, it was reassuring, it was annoying. Sometimes it was that perfectly kind of irritating that pulls you a bit away from yourself and your humdrum existence, like when a child looks at a photograph of you and exclaims in something between awe and disgust, “Look at your face!”

That’s what he was doing now, and if I told him no, he’d go, but then I’d be getting out of the shower, thinking of that time in high school when— bam! He’d just be sitting in the sink, playing with the soap and asking me if I had smelled Strawberry Fields Forever in a bottle yet?”

“Alright, but not too far, I got a lot to do today,” I confirmed, letting Mr. Puddles back into the house, throwing on a jean jacket and dragging my feet to follow wherever his would take me. I knew I didn’t have him fooled. Just like I was his dog, he knew I’d walk all day with him, down any strange side streets or straight off a cliff.

“Wow, do you even realize how long it took me to get here!?” He mocked offense.

“Probably like five seconds… I don’t know, where were you before this?” I expected anything, with each footstep we were leaving the realm of sanity far behind us.

“Well, I was just over there!” He pointed down the street in the direction his bike rolled in from.

“You know, I was quite busy,” I said grimly.

“And what were you doing?” He grinned. To him, everything anyone did was all child’s play. Perhaps everything he did was child’s play too. If I had built a skyscraper with my own bare hands, he’d not be impressed, but amused, asking if I had fun playing with my big legos.

“There is vacancy in Hotel Left Toes, but right foot still needs to clear out the bad guests,” I muttered.

“So you were cleaning out your toes?”

I nodded, strictly business.

“This is your big plan for the day? You don’t want to see me because you want to pick out the lint from between your toes?”

“I mean, if you wanted to watch—“

“Would you let me do it for you?”

“Are we that close now?”

“I wouldn’t! I was just curious if you would say yes!” Then he laughed and I rolled my eyes, and as I could have guessed he had taken me to a nearby trail. It was actually some exceptionally long gravel driveway, most definitely private property to a neighbor I didn’t know, but to him, landownership was all a joke as well.

I tried to ask again, though it was probably pointless, “Where did you come from?”

“The same place as you,” he replied, brushing his gaze over me as he took to enjoying the woods that was emerging around us. Suddenly he pointed and asked eagerly, “See those squirrels!?”

Two squirrels were chasing each other, jumping from tree to tree.

“Cute,” I muttered.

“That’s us!”

“You are nuts.”

We walked on, listening to the crunching sound the gravel made under our feet, the chipping of the squirrels and the singing of the birds. The air was cool but pleasant, but my head was still heavy.

Finally I sighed, “I am the squirrel.”

“What did I say!?” he exclaimed, proud that I admitted to his looney observation.

“I’m so distracted. I can’t achieve any of my goals,” I sighed, expressing the dread I was carrying as I realized why he had appeared this grey morning. I was a nut in a rut. Sure, I was better off than when we first met, but now I was just living in the motions of things. The squirrels didn’t deserve my comparison. They were doing what they came here to do! Me…?

“You ever play soccer?” he inquired.

“You know I’m no athlete.”

“If you don’t play soccer, how can you score a—“ he ran after a rock, kicking it fast and far into the sky while exclaiming, “gooooooaaaaal!?”

“I’m not really about the team sports,” I suggested, not sure he wasn’t dropping some subtle symbolic hint or just being entirely goofy. With him, anything was possible.

“Are you on team success or team failure?” he asked as I sighed.

“This season, I don’t think we have one win…”

“Well guess what, chicken butt!? In every failure is success! Team! T-E-A-M. Teach Everyone About Merit!”

He was so carefree and goofy, I never felt embarrassed when I couldn’t remember things that other people might think less of me for forgetting, so I asked curiously, “What does merit mean?”

“It’s all about virtue, praiseworthy qualities, honor and what we deserve to receive,” he talked with a lofty smile, waving his hand around aimlessly. I pondered his teaching a moment, and then he asked me, “Do you think anyone succeeds without failing hundreds, if not thousands of times?”

“How can they overcome the frustration and disappointment they feel with themselves?” I sighed, this too, was a war that raged on within me.

“I’m sorry, I’m just so sick of trying to teach you.” He suddenly sighed, turned on his heels and started walking through jagged bushes that crunched and wavered in protest to his dramatic escape.

“Hey! Okay, wow, sheesh!” I watched him stumble and break through innocent foliage, until he finally slumped his shoulders and planted his forehead on the truck of a thick tree. I waited and watched. He stayed like that for at least five minutes. Finally, I gave in and trekked through the bushes that scratched at my skin and tugged on my clothes as I tried to maneuver through them with a caring grace and gentleness, far from the skill of a squirrel.

“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder.

He still didn’t move, but muttered, sounding as though he had been crying, “Who are you apologizing to?”

“I was apologizing to you, but maybe you should do the same to those bushes back there, you really knocked the heck out of them.”

“They’ll be fine, they are bushes.”

“That’s rather insensitive,” I muttered.

“You mean, I shouldn’t be so harsh? I should think more about others than just myself?” He moved from the tree, looking at me curiously.

“Go on…”

“And if I’m so careless to the bushes, phew, maybe I was being a bit too reckless with myself!” He almost seemed to smile.

I wasn’t completely amused, “You shouldn’t give up on your students and leave them alone in the woods like you just did, you know?”

“What, I left you on a trail, you’d have made it back without me. I’m useless!” He sighed and brought his hand to cover his face.

“Why are you talking this way! Don’t you know everyone has a purpose!? Where would I be without you?”

“So you still want me here, even if I make mistakes?” Tears shone in his eyes as he looked into mine.

“I need you here. Don’t be so hard on yourself!” I exclaimed.

He sighed, seeming relieved, “Alright, if you say so!” He put his arm around my shoulder and we slowly made our way back to the gravel trail.

He turned us back down the road towards my house and I realized it would soon be his time to depart.

“I’m actually rather enjoying this adventure with you,” I said, feeling my spirit uplifted by the strange man.

“I thought you had toes to clean!” he exclaimed, suddenly playing the role of a strict parent over my personal hygiene.

“For you, it can wait.” I smiled brightly at him.

He laughed, “Glad I am so high up on your priorities now.”

I sighed out what I sensed, “But you have to go.”

“Oh, I’m always around, just smile and you’ll know.”

“Never too afraid to smile,” I sighed.

Soon we were standing outside my house. I once again noticed all the work that still needed done; a new roof, the moss was hanging around the tiles like the lint between my toes, dog poop decorated the front lawn like spring daisies. The doorbell needed replaced, the driveway repaved, and the list went on and on. Yet, I wasn’t defeated anymore, I was energized and ready to put in the work, even if I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I was ready to fail, ready to succeed.

“Back to the zoo with you!” He ushered me off with a gentle push and picked up his bicycle, ready to speed off to who knew where.

“Hey!” I called as he was about to pedal away.

“Hey!” he echoed.

“Thanks Micheal.”

“Thank yourself!”