Smile...

fiction

"Let me look at it."

"It's fine. Really. I've had worse."

Dani sighed, "I know you've had worse. But at least let me look at it. Did they break anything?"

Audrey gave a small half smile with the uninjured side of her face, "Nope. Well, actually, maybe. I think there might be a cracked tooth in there. It didn't fall apart, but it feels a little sharp."

"That's not good. You know they won't send you to a dentist."

"Maybe they would. A dentist with a pair of pliers and no anesthesia. Like The Little Shop of Horrors" then Audrey sang a little bit, "You'll be a dentist, you have a talent for causing great pain! Oh you'll be a dentist..."

Dani laughed, "Stop it. This isn't funny."

"Oh come on, it's kind of funny. I mean, the song anyway. Maybe not the cracked tooth. But I'm actually named after Audrey so it's kind of funny."

"You're named after a plant?"

"No, that's Audrey Two, I'm named after the woman Audrey. The one Seymour was obsessed with. My parents were theater kids. I'm just lucky I wasn't named Fantine or something tragic like that."

"Why did they do it, anyway? Not that I'm saying you did something, but..."

"But what did I do? It's okay, I mean you're playing the odds. They always have a reason, right? It's always something we did."

"Always."

"Well, I smiled."

"You smiled? They clocked you in the face because you smiled?"

"They clocked me in the face with the butt of a rifle because I smiled."

"For fuck's sake. Wait, isn't that why you got hit last time?"

"Not the last time, the last time was for sneezing during head count. The time before that was laughing. So sort of the same."

"Oh god, that's right. I forgot about the sneeze."

"It was a sarcastic sneeze, apparently."

"If anyone could sneeze sarcastically it would be you."

"True. But it really was just a sneeze. I mean, it's spring. What did they expect? People are going to sneeze."

Dani reached out again and took the cloth from the side of Audrey's face. She sucked in her breath, "Well, that's going to be a nasty bruise for awhile. Perfect shape of the stock though. Clean hit."

"They've had practice. It's good to do what you love and are good at right?"

"How can you joke about it? I mean, that's what got you hit. No smiling. No laughing. No jokes. No sarcasm. No emotion other than misery."

"I can joke because I can joke. Do you get that? They have taken away everything they can, but they can't take away everything."

"Is that what you think their issue is? That they want to take away everything?"

"Honestly? I think they hate to see us smile or laugh because they are small and mean. They have always been small and mean. And because they are that way they cannot imagine someone smiling or laughing for any other reason than mocking. Every time they see one of us smile they assume we are mocking them. If they hear laughter they assume they are the butt of the joke. And that's just not acceptable. They have the guns. They have the power. We should be afraid of them, not mocking them."

"We are afraid of them."

"Yeah we are. But we still smile and laugh and tell jokes. And so they assume we are mocking them. And small, mean people have no sense of humor about themselves. They could never make a joke about how hard it's going to be to find blush to match this for my other cheek."

Dani smiled and shook her head, "You're terrible. But we usually aren't even thinking about them when we're joking with each other. Not really."

"Yeah, and I think the ones that know that, are even madder. That we don't think about them if we can help it. That any time we have that we can think about other things, fun things, happy things, sweet memories, private jokes with each other, we do. And if they know we aren't thinking about them then they know we aren't terrified 24/7 and they hate that. But even more than that, if we have memories, if we have things that we still love enough to smile about? Well that makes us human, and they absolutely cannot think of us as being human. Not and still be able to do this." Audrey waved her hand over the bruise on the side of her face.

"Fuck them."

"Yep, fuck them. We will still laugh and sing old show tunes and tell each other stories with happy endings. We will always remember who we are. And even though we are scared, we will be brave about it."

Dani nodded, "So what were you smiling about?"

Audrey started to laugh, "You know O'Reilly? The new guard? He put his ammo belt on wrong. It was banging him in the butt every step he took. Step, ass smack, step, ass smack, step, ass smack."

Dani started to laugh as well.

"Okay, so sometimes we really are mocking them."

Dani laughed even harder, "Well we're only human."

Audrey smiled and put the wet cloth back against her cheek. "Yes, we are."