Frozen Smile

The same face.

Always the same.

Never a crack to be seen.

Yet she sees through his lies.

Sees the lines left behind

Sees the result of theft

Sees the smile slip

But only when he thinks he’s not being watched.

Alone in the corner,

At the table,

Standing in the cold, waiting,

She sees behind the smile,

Eternally frozen in place.

One day,

She asks him,

Trying to peak beneath the frozen smile,

The mask of calm,

Of joy.

Behind him then,

Seen only in the eye of her imagination

She sees a door hanging in air.

He stands before her,

Before it,

With a fixed smile of grim determination

In place on his frozen face.

He answers her question,

And in so doing

The door cracks open.

Shadows crawl from behind that flimsy veil.

Bestial shapes and writhing hate,

Long,

Twisting,

Clawing,

Rending,

Tearing,

From behind the door they pour,

Long tendrils of inky dark,

Coiling around his shoulder,

Entwining his throat and pulling taut,

As the frozen smile dips a fraction

But only that.

Snapping back into place

The smile seals the door.

A frozen smile

In a frozen face.

Behind him, in her mind’s eye,

Beyond the border of the map she has of him

There be monsters there,

Just out of sight,

Lingering behind a frozen smile.

-0-

Author's Note:

Thank you, reader

For putting this on your radar

Edited to fit the Challenge

Surprisingly tough to scavenge

Ideas for this entry

And so to you, esteemed gentry

I offer earnest thanks