The Smiling Men

June 20, 2027,

I’ve decided to chronicle my experiences in a journal. I think my life has been interesting enough to warrant one.

For All practical purposes, I’m an orphan. While my parents aren’t technically dead, they might as well be. They are enmeshed.

In 2025, a new technology called “meshing” was developed which made the internet obsolete. It allowed people to communicate directly, mind to mind, and instantly share knowledge, feelings, and thoughts. Though also recreational, meshing was immensely practical, and many companies paid for the operation for their employees. Both my Mom and Dad got the operation for work. Better than cellphones or email, it soon blanketed the cities.

Meshing began to cause noticeable changes in people early on. They seemed to retreat into themselves, and stopped talking or interacting with anyone. As they withdrew from society, another strange trend took hold among the enmeshed. They began to smile constantly. Not small smirks, but broad, unabashed grins, as though they couldn’t help themselves. They wouldn’t talk or interact with anyone normally, but they were beaming all day long. Instead of the people who had once been my friends and family, I was suddenly surrounded by a horde of grinning mutes. I decided to call them “Smileys”, because they certainly weren’t the people I had known anymore.

My parents were happy idiots, smiling all the time. They had forsaken me. I left them, and quickly learned to fed for myself. I was twelve.

Two years have passed since then. Sane people like myself have long since stopped wanting to become enmeshed, fearful of becoming smiling drones like the others. Most normal adults have disappeared, probably out to the countryside where they can find work. Infrastructure has mostly disintegrated in the cities, where those who had run things have been transformed into smiling mutes. Society has fallen to pieces. Normal people like me are few and far between, and our numbers seem to dwindle daily.

I live with a small gang of children of varying ages in the “Employees Only” section of a Wal-Mart. Our parents have all become Smileys; we have to provide for ourselves. The store has plenty of canned food, and we’re able to live comfortable.

November 6, 2027,

Last night, my friend John and I went out for a midnight stroll. It’s a relatively common practice among the boys in out group; with no parents to set our bedtimes, our schedules have rapidly become chaotic. Midnight is also the best time to “liberate” supplies, and the most fun part of the day for us.

John was an interesting character. About seventeen years old, he had been raised by his grandparents out in the woods, and was an experienced hunter. Our band first met him when he was pursuing some of the wild dog packs that hunted in the night. Following the sound of gunshots, we found him standing over a fresh kill with a shotgun and a skinning knife. He soon became the leader of our gang, teaching us the ways of survival and transforming us from city kids into a pack of little savages able to prosper in the recent dystopia.

Not that the Smileys are bad rulers. We have to get our own food, but they maintain the power grid and keep the roads in working order. They live in communes and don’t bother us much. Not an uncommon sight in the city, they hardly seem like people. They look at us as we pass, but their eyes are dull, and lack any hint of recognition. Still smiling, they always turn away and go back to their work once we have passed. We treat them callously, with the cruelty and arrogance only the young can evince. Sometimes it bothers me, but I get over it. Their lives have no meaning to me, and why should they? Smileys aren’t people, just dull, unthinking animals.

Last night, John and I had ventured far, wandering the outskirts of the city. Tall buildings had begun to give way to strip malls. As we walked across the many parking lots, John noticed and decided to investigate, hoping to find some coffee in the abandoned flats. I was left outside to guard against rival bands like ours. It was cold, and I could see my breath in the chill night air. I had been waiting for about five minutes when I hear gunfire. Our gang had found a cache of AK-47s in a gun shop a few moths ago, and I could hear the rattle of one from within the apartments. I abandoned my post and entered cautiously, expecting to encounter members of another gang. But something seemed wrong. Another gang would have had graffiti everywhere. I could see none.

Around the corner, there were bright flashes of light. Abruptly, the deafening staccato of the gun stopped. A few moments later, I saw John being carried by a group of people towards the bank of elevators in the corner. I hid in the shadows. There were far too many of them for me to take alone. The elevator pinged, and the doors opened, bathing the figures in artificial light that reflected off their exposed teeth. They were smiling. Evidently, the Smileys were not ass passive as I had thought. John wouldn’t have started a conflict he couldn’t have won, and the Smileys greatly outnumbered him.

Today, I saw John working with a road repair party, a grin plastered across his face. The disappearances I’ve noticed weren’t random chance, but the application of calculated force by an enemy much more devious than I had thought. The Smileys are actively recruiting.

October 31, 2030,

Many years have passed, and I have become a leader of the resistance. I am now seventeen. The rival gangs from my childhood have realized that divided, we are easy prey for the Smileys. At first our united force was relatively strong, but we have been whittled away over the years of war waged against the Smileys. Our every loss bolsters their numbers; they don’t kill, they capture. They fight with tasers and tranquilizer guns, but everyone they hit would be better off dead. Those captured return the next day with the enemy, grinning just as stupidly as their new comrades. How do you fight enemy that moves and thinks as one? An enemy with no individuals, just a smiling mass of bodies eager to assimilate you into their ranks? An enemy who fights in silence, doesn’t scream when he is killed, and continues smiling even while his eyes glaze over.

July 4, 2035,

Our forces have begun to dwindle. I’m 22 now. Our group, which once controlled a whole quarter of the city, has been reduced to smaller and smaller regions. The Smileys are unstoppable, and now we have only a few blocks. We, who were once thousands strong, now number only a few hundred. We’ve been forced to withdraw to our greatest fortress permanently, the abandoned furniture warehouse we call “the Keep.” Two years after John was taken, our band found the Keep, and established it as a safe haven for any Normals left. It has survived through the years as the center of our defense. Now it is our only stronghold left, and it weathers assaults from the Smileys daily. We reinforce it with anything we can salvage from the nearby dump, but our defenses are far from sufficient, and every day brings a vicious battle for survival.

December 31, 2035,

Yesterday will live on forever in my mind. The Smileys attacked again last night. As they started climbing the west wall, it gave way for the first time. Smileys poured through the breach. Among those defending the wall, I was nearly crushed by the cascade of junk that had made up the wall. I was trapped underneath a bed frame and a pile of rebar that was too heavy to shift. Blood rand down my forehead. I could hardly see, let alone fight. Waiting for help, I tried to hide myself from the Smileys running past. Relaxing and breathing deeply, I tried to delay my collapse into unconsciousness. My memory fades shortly after that. I remember someone pulling at my eyelids, checking if my pupils dilated, and a smiling face in the dark.

The room I am in now seems strange. Its appearance doesn’t match its purpose. The hardwood floors glow in the soft light let in by the windows, and I can hear the gentle music of the spring rain as it dances on the roof. I might have forgotten my situation if it weren’t for the cold shackles on my hands and feet, and the dull gleam of metal equipment in the dimness, waiting to convert me into one of my enemies and rip away my soul.

A man entered the room. My blurred sight could only make out his hazy form, as though he were an impressionist figure. I can only look up tiredly, resigned to my fate. The handcuffs won’t give, and its too late to escape now.

“My name is John. This will sting a little.”

This was strange. He was not smiling as I would have expected, and was talking normally. Smileys never spoke. As my blurry vision focused on him, I realized he was the John I had known so long ago, but with none of the edge in his manner present when he was young. I was too shocked to even resist as his hand reached around behind my head and pressed something behind my ear.

What startled me wasn’t the twinge of pain, but the sensation of what he pressed there. Something was embedded in my skin. When I brushed my fingers across it, it felt small, smooth, and warm, different from how I imagined things would be. I thought the Smileys would live in a barren world, with no comforts, and as soon as they assimilated me, I would lose everything. This wasn’t the case. I felt normal, just like I always had. The room was far from barren. It seemed comfortable and homey. Things were not playing out according to my expectations.

I heard a buzzing noise emanate from the device. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with emotion. It wasn’t happiness or anger, sadness or bliss, longing or ebullience, but a strange mixture of all those at once. It was ecstasy. A smile grew unbidden on my face. I looked up at John, whose face twinkled with an expression of understanding.

“How does it eel? That’s the combined feeling of everyone meshed in, those you call “Smileys.” ” He seemed to be amused by the nickname now, and uttered it without any of the hate employed when he was young. “Welcome to Utopia.”

“We have come to realize that the failings of the human race were, for the most part, communication problems. Meshing provides us with the ability to understand everyone else who is enmeshed; to know what they know, think what they think, and understand who they are. Its hard to hurt anyone you know that well.”

As he spoke, thousands of hands reached into my mind, accessing, learning, welcoming and embracing me. There was no hostility, even though I had killed countless numbers of Smileys in my efforts to defend the Keep. There was only the warmth of community and understanding. This was no hive mind, but a collection of individuals, each of whose uniqueness was astounding. Meshing isn’t a loss of individuality, but a celebration of it.

I rejoiced in the feeling. The Smileys have been the bad guys all my life, but I just can’t muster up the feelings necessary to hate them anymore. It’s as though my anger has been turned off somehow, and I can only feel happiness right now.

I can understand why the Smileys fight now though. I would have never imagined that anything like this feeling could be possible. Force is the only way to spread this amazing sensation, and it must be shared. Now that I understand, I have a duty and a responsibility to share this with my comrades. Tomorrow I will march on the Keep with a smile on my face.