The Smile, a General fanfic - FictionPress.com

Your Smile

You grin, although inside you cry.

Because why should you be sad?

Afterall, you made it.

Your family, they made it.

What’s there to be sad about?

We are sitting in my living room,

staring vacantly at the television.

There are so many of us crowded onto the sofas that the younger kids have been forced onto the floor.

The children really shouldn’t be in here watching with us.

They should be outside playing four square or a game of hide’n go seek.

There’s a basketball hoop just across the street, maybe we should give them a ball.

But the children are just as bound to the glowing black box as we are,

and no one wants to make them leave.

After all, whatever happens today will change their lives as well.

How can he be so calm, that man on the television screen?

He’s dressed so smartly in his navy silk suit with the flashing gold cufflinks.

He gestures behind him, waving his hand limply at the spiraling ring of reds and oranges.

The colors stand out so sharply against the green of the land and the blue of the sea.

And we listen,

listlessly,

as the man informs us of the long lines of cars marching endlessly across the state.

There are words like “Beaumont” and “Corpus” and “Houston” pasted underneath a bar at the bottom of the screen, the text lettering as crisp as the man’s suit.

And we see short clips of swarms of cars fleeing, a chaotic pandemonium.

Everyone is frantic to leave, but the traffic snake slithers at its leisure.

There is no place to go, the man on the television continues.

He smoothes the creases down his blue silk suit,

and I gaze around my living room at the close-pressed bodies circled around the television set like a council of war.

There is no place to go, he repeats.

No place to go.

We sit down for dinner: some around the kitchen table, others perched precariously atop the bar stools, and the rest overflowing onto the living room sofas.

Each clutches a place setting: a black everyday dish, or one of the Christmas plates with the blue snowmen, or one of the clear plastic after-dinner dishes.

We’ve even had to raid the China hutch, and I spot one of the fancy porcelain plate that my mom loves (the set with the silver rims that we only take out for special occasions).

The porcelain plate is seated behind the living room coffee table.

The dish doesn’t belong there.

As we eat our fill of over-cooked hot dogs and lumpy macaroni, I watch you.

Your grin is large and round-tipped,

Unfailing, reassuring in its consistency.

As severe as black ink.

But still you’re smiling.

What can you possibly be smiling about?

Dinner is followed by dessert, and the man on the screen continues his monologue,

telling us things that we really don’t want to hear.

We want to silence him; we are frightened by what he tells us.

But we keep listening anyway.

We are more afraid of the silence.

At night, I lay awake,

gazing at the paint speckles on my ceiling,

listening to the two soft snores emitting from the bundled forms on the floor swaddled in my second-best set of cotton bed sheets.

We ran out of sleeping bags.

I want to turn on my beside-lamp,

pick up my well-worn copy of Sharon Shinn’s “Archangel,”

and lose myself among the plains of Samaria.

I’ve got my favorite parts dog-eared,

the page corners creased into messy triangles.

But with the addition of two new persons to my room, I cannot turn on the light.

I don’t want to wake them up; God knows they need the sleep.

I sigh softly to myself,

the noise sounding mournful even to my ears.

What will happen?

Yes, you’re all okay now.

You’ve said that so many times today, that I almost believe you.

But what about that girl with the long chestnut hair?

The one who had just started nursing school in Galveston?

She had studied so hard to be accepted.

She had worked those long, dry summers to afford the tuition.

Will her school still be intact?

(Will her dreams?)

And what about that family: the three teenage boys with their father living in Houston?

They were so proud of how well they’d fixed up that house.

They’d scraped off the peeling paint, and coated the walls in a cheerful cream color.

They’d finally saved enough money to have the flooring redone; they’d shown me how when I walked down the hallway my feet would click-click on the wooden floor, and the noise would echo softly, like a snare drum without the clip.

But after tomorrow where will those hallways lead to?

Will the house they worked so hard repairing be beyond repair?

And what about that boy from New Orleans?

The tall boy with the unruly brown hair, who is majoring in Physics, and in love with my sister.

After the angry waters, I saw that emptiness in his eyes.

I caught that haunted, yearning look when he knew that he could not go home.

And I waited with him.

We waited.

And then when those waters finally receded, when he had finally resolved to return home and to face the devastation, to rebuild his life by rebuilding his house one brick at a time--

A swirling ring of reds and oranges barreled into the Gulf,

And he was driven from his house once again.

How is this poor boy holding up?

Can he really be as strong as he needs to be?

Does he really have a choice?

I get up then, kicking off my calico cotton sheets,

and tip-toeing over the slumbering forms occupying the free-space of my bedroom floor.

I head for the kitchen.

The kitchen light is on, and you’re sitting at the table.

(Somehow I knew you’d be there).

You’re grinning at me again, that empty grin.

And it hurts to see your counterfeit smile.

You’re always smiling now.

I’ve never seen you smile this much in your life.

How can you be smiling?

Why are you smiling?

You smile, although inside you’re crying.

Because you must be strong, for all of us.

Afterall, you’re our rock, on which we’ve built this family.

And rocks don’t cry.

So I’ll cry for you.