A world where an apology replaces a greeting, where the accidental locking of gazes is judged too great an intrusion; this is the world we live in. A world where relationships are born barren, soured by the preconceptions of those that stumble into them. There is no need for angry sneers to be worn anymore, though many are. To drive someone away all that is required is a smile.
The right kind of smile.
We have come to fear embarrassment and so, like turtles, we hide within our shells to protect our necks, our dignity. It is in the unknown that we are made fools of, through acting rashly and in conditions we do not control. We fear mystery and secrets, hushed conversations behind sheltering hands. In this fear, grown irrational unto the perverse, we fear the very relationships we have traditionally sought, traditionally lived for.
It is the smile of mystery that we have grown to fear, a smile that haunts and alienates us.
For this smile is both everything we wish for and everything we fear. We, who are cursed just as Midas and Tantallus were cursed, have forged for ourselves manacles of the mind in a world where all we truly desire is freedom. We have isolated ourselves in a world where all we want is understanding. We have cloaked ourselves in black, in a false anger and a simulacrum of knowing, of understanding more than each other. We have alienated one another when all we have to fear is isolation
