The Meaning of Smiles

The Smile Café was exceptionally loud when I entered. I closed hearing receptors, so the superfluous amount of noise did not overload my cognitive processing. Even without hearing the tones of voices around me, I knew the lack of ‘smiles’ in the cafe meant that most of the organic humans inside were not ‘happy.’ Smiles equaled happiness to organic life, according to everything I computed. 

I took a seat at an empty, and somewhat sticky table as I waited for my acquaintance Jarleen to show. I attempted to implement the human practice of “running late”, to counteract my compulsive need to be at our meeting point at the agreed upon time, but I had still arrived ahead of her. At least I was practicing one of the many organic human cultures I was asked by the Board to explore.

I felt the vibration of stomping as a customer at the front service desk slammed their foot into the ground 1, 2, 3 times. Their skin was the color of cherries, one of the many fruits often used to compare a well circulated, organic face. This flushness also indicated a few different feelings that could be found to them; embarrassment, anger, sickness. My processing concluded that anger made the most sense in this scenario. The service worker smiled tightly, the first smile this café has probably seen all afternoon and pointed towards the door. My eyes tracked the customer as they stomped out of the café. I found it odd that the worker was happy to see a customer displeased, as I believed their objective was to provide satisfactory service to all customers. 

Jarleen was 10 minutes late at this point. I was not sure what I was supposed to do. I sent her a quick text message to confirm I had arrived at the meeting spot, though I was positive she knew it would be hard for me to go against an agreed upon action. I was familiar enough with Jarleen to know that “running late” was not one of her usual human traits. From my research, it was not acceptable to loiter in a location without contributing to its business. I went to go wait in line to order something. As I waited, I observed another woman across the café, about 5 tables down who appeared to be crying. Another feeling I neglected to mention that was also associated with a cherry like face. Tears fell from her face and into her coffee cup. Just then, a man quickly walked into the café and headed straight for her table. She looked up to the man and seemed to recognize him. She smiled at him but tears still ran down her face. That was something again I found not right. A smile that means someone is happy, appearing at the same time as tears. Tears meant that someone was NOT happy. The man dropped something onto the table and left as quick as he had arrived. With my perfect vision, I could see that he had left a gold ring, and as the woman picked it up, the smile disappeared.

It was my turn to order. Looking at the menu, there was not much that stood out to me. Eating wasn’t necessary for me. I turned on my auditory system and asked for a cup of coffee. The café was still incredibly loud, and I wondered how I would be able to conversate successfully with Jarleen when she did arrive. Processing multiple things at once was not my strongest feature. The worker smiled and gave me my order.

I sat back down and made out the sound of the front door opening again. I turned to see if Jarleen had finally arrived, she was 23 minutes late now, but it was not her. I looked away and saw another smile that perplexed me. A woman smiling, sat next to a man, who was also smiling. The man wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and she shrugged it off. He attempted to hold her hand on the table, and she retracted her limbs quickly. She shifted her chair so that there was more space between them. He touched her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. Her smile stayed big and tight. Suddenly I saw the café living up to its name with all of the ‘happy’ yet confusing customers inside. My phone buzzed as I received a text from Jarleen.

“Today has been great. I got into a car accident. =) I won’t be able to meet today. Let’s reschedule.”

When people get into accidents, that usually leads to distress, anger or sadness. But here she was, sending me a smile emoticon. Did that mean she was happy about her accident?

I was beyond Ambivalent at this point. Yes, I was still a beginner at understanding organic humans and blending in with their environment and culture, but up until this point I was able to decipher their complexities. However, the use of smiles in these situations did not make any logical sense. If my body could be fatigued, I would be exhausted right now from trying to process this dilemma.

As the cog worked at full speed in my head, a service worker approached my table. She pointed at me and said, “Excuse me, are you ok? Some customers are getting concerned. You have been sitting here, staring blank faced for a while.”

Blank faced? What did that mean? Regardless, I was prepared to leave. If Jarleen was not showing, that meant I did not need to be subjecting myself to the overwhelming levels of noise anymore. I suppose that would make me ‘happy.’ We could meet up another time somewhere less loud and do business more efficiently. Odd that this situation worked out almost well in that aspect.

I stood up and looked to the worker. I boosted the volume in my voice to speak over the crowd and I pulled my face muscles into a smile. “My acquaintance just got into a car accident!”