The truth about smiles

My name is Sari. I’m the only one of my kind up here. I work a lot. In fact I work day and night, weekends and holidays. Only that up here we don’t have such things as holidays. We do what we love doing and each day we feel fulfilled. Each day we learn more and more and can perfect our skills. I’m a manufacturer of smiles and I export them all over your world. The beautiful thing about smiles is that they are universally understood. Let me tell you a bit about what I do:

I created the very first smile, I still remember it as if it was just yesterday. Of course up here the concept of time like you humans have doesn’t exist.
The first smile I created I named: simple smile. It was of such beauty that I kept creating only simple smiles for a long time.

Then I created sad smiles, right and left sided smiles, cynical smiles, tired smiles, hopeful smiles, cheerful smiles, I even started creating hysterical laughter, tearful laughter and “laughing from the bottom of the heart”. Then I created a few arrogant grins here, a few joyful grins there and just general grins to be used at any occasion.

I felt a need for some shy smiles which was quite a task, as these smiles had to light up a face for only a few seconds before vanishing as fast as they came again, to leave no trace on the face of a smile apart from some blushing on the cheeks. I love shy smiles. I, myself, am described as quite an introvert and when I have my yearly meetings with other manufacturers up here, I’m always the last one to present. So creating a shy smile was one of my greatest inventions ever.

After that I felt there was a lot of sadness on earth. I started crying a lot, I felt for each single one of you. I saw you crying into your pillows at night when you were alone so I created the sad smile. Sad smiles are quite important, as they signal to those around you: “Hey, look at me, I’m sad, but I’m also smiling at you because I hope that you see that this smile is not a happy smile, but a sad smile, and that you will embrace me while listening to my sorrows.”

I also created the breathtaking and mesmerising smiles. Those where a girl will smile at a young man and he will fall off his bike. For a long time I kept exporting a lot of these smiles. Countries like Italy or Spain imported most of them. I saw so many men falling off bikes there. That was a period of entertainment for me, I can tell you that!

I went on creating the innocent smile, and no one else but kids have the ability to make this smile one of the most beautiful smiles I ever created. When a child gives you an innocent smile it has an instant healing effect on you for it signals: “Hey, I’m a child, I don’t care where you work, how much you earn, what brands you wear, what your religion and race is or your skin colour. I smile at you because I want to play with you. Please give me some of your attention.” Isn’t that just wonderful?

I have to say, when I created the cynical smile I was hoping it wouldn’t be successful but unfortunately I created something that is being used all over now. Don’t you humans see how ugly a cynical smile on your faces looks? It says: “I’m so much better than you, you are inferior to me in so many ways.” I never understood why humans felt the need to build such a hierarchical system, where a simple gardener isn’t as much worth as a banker, even though the gardener actually creates something far more beautiful.

I also love the “I just remembered something beautiful smile”. I just love observing you, while you walk alone and suddenly your faces will light up, you will smile for a second or two, before you turn your attention to the traffic and the daily hectic life again. One of my favourite pass times used to be to try and imagine what that person was just remembering. Was it a sweet childhood memory? A thought about the handsome colleague at work who blinked at you?

Which brings me to the most adorable smile: The “Im so in love smile”. I could watch you humans day and night when you fall in love. First the very many exchanges of the shy smiles I created, followed by some mesmerising smiles from the girls, followed by the men’s “I’m so irresistible” smile and then finally the “I’m so in love smile” by both. I wished, however, that you humans could keep up these smiles much longer. I wish you would never forget these beautiful first moments you spent together and that you keep looking into each other’s eyes as if it was still something magical, like after the very first kiss you shared.

For the last few decades I have been specialising in abundant smiles. You don’t know what abundant smiles are? Look at those around you who just freely give their smiles away to anyone. They smile for no reason at all, other than for the sake of smiling. They give their smiles as a present and lift people up. Don’t you humans know that smiles are so very contagious? One smile travels a long way. Every year I try to find the longest chain of smiles. It’s not easy to do that by the way. I have to be very concentrated as it’s all very quick. I need to see how far this smile will travel and how many people will pass that smile on.

I also created the “good bye” smile: Which is a combination of a sad smile and a “reassuring smile”, because you humans seem to have understood that you always meet twice in life (at least!). So I shall leave you now. I hope I could enlighten you a bit about the craftsmanship of smiles. Keep smiling abundantly for it makes me so very happy! Good Bye!