The Importance of Smiles

There's a thousand things that I could go off about at two o'clock in the morning. There's only one that I want to go off about right now though, and that one thing is how important smiling really is. Why don't you all sit down and listen to the tale that I'm about to tell?

It's a story about poor old Jeff Naire. He's a single man, living in a crappy apartment somewhere in New York, the big apple. Someone out there cares about him, actually a lot of people do, but he doesn't see it. He's depressed, doesn't see the beauty in the world. Have you ever watched the sun rise and the sun set? He does, everyday. But he never sees the sun rise or the sun set, he just watches it. There's something strange about that for sure. He doesn't even know why he does it. Maybe it's conditioning.

His watch goes off at the same time everyday to signal the end of his shift at the Quickie. He slowly packs up his stuff, signs out and snails his way out of the door. All he does is walk home, unless he needs to get food. Even depressed people won't starve themselves to death. He doesn't drink water, that's too soft for him.

Poor old Jeff Naire is an alcoholic. What he calls 'booze' and 'his key to happiness' are really just slowly killing him. Jeff doesn't smile. At one point he did, but those times are all gone. At night he turns on the comedy channel and sits there, never laughing or smiling in the bit. Maybe he's looking for a reason to smile, but  his reason left years ago.

Poor old Jeff Naire used to have a girlfriend. She was his world. She was his world up until she left him, forever. Jeff didn't smile very much back then either, he didn't see the point in it. He spends all his time asking why. Here's a little something I've learned in life, the happiest people don't ask why. The happiest people ask why not. She was one of those people, but Jeff got her down.

"Poor old Jeff Naire is too much of a downer." She said to him, half being empathetic, half being a bitch. She finally got fed up with his depressing mood all the time. She couldn't be her happy self around such a downer. She loved him but that love didn't bring happiness. She chose to stop letting him bring her down all the time, and flew away from poor old Jeff Naire. She soared through life after leaving him, never bringing a second thought to her decision.

Poor old Jeff Naire hasn't smiled since. Jeff never learned his lesson. The teacher did all she could. The worst part is that poor old Jeff Naire will never get better, unless he decides to change his view on life, but that idea is far out of his reach now. He's forgotten how to smile; he's forgotten how to be happy. He hates himself and blames himself for the death of his father, two years before his girlfriend left him. His father died in a car crash on the other side of the border.

Poor old Jeff Naire watches the sunset from his apartment balcony. He takes a picture and uploads it to his computer, leaving it open beside the note he typed for the police and other people that would be there soon. He climbs onto the railing and looks down. At some point he was bound to do it, it just happens to be today. The wind rushes by him as he falls to the cold hard cement like Humpty Dumpty.

 

Poor old Jeff Naire let himself fall. Jeff forgot to smile, even when everything seems to be going wrong. Something I learned while investigating his life was that sometimes when things get so bad it seems like nothing will ever get better, you just have to laugh somethings off. Well that, and when you've hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up.

-Zero