My neighbor David began smiling sometime in October.
Not the normal kind of smiling. He'd always been pleasant — a quiet, nodding-hello kind of neighbor, unremarkable. Then in October he started smiling constantly. Walking to his car: smiling. Getting the mail: smiling. Mowing the lawn: smiling with his mouth stretched open and his teeth showing in the way that people don't usually smile when they're mowing the lawn.
I ran into him at the mailbox and asked how he was doing. He said fine, in a voice that was slightly off — not in pitch, in rhythm, like he was translating from something before speaking. The whole time he was smiling. The whole time his mouth was open in a way that would be uncomfortable to maintain, the kind of expression you'd need to consciously hold.
He looked like he was holding it consciously. He looked like he couldn't stop.
I asked, directly, if he was okay. He said yes. I asked about the smile. He looked at me for a moment — still smiling — and said: "I looked at something I shouldn't have looked at."
I asked what.
He said: "It doesn't matter. It's in me now. It found a muscle it likes and it won't leave it alone."
Then he went inside.
The smiling continued. Weeks. Months. His wife moved out in December. He didn't stop smiling. I could see it through the window sometimes — him sitting in his house, alone, smiling in the dark.
I called the non-emergency police line in January, just to report that I was concerned. The officer who came by spoke with David for several minutes. He came back to his car looking unsettled. He said David was fine, legally. He said David had something he called "a condition."
He didn't say what kind of condition. He sat in the car for a few minutes before driving away.
In February, I came home to find David sitting on my porch steps. Still smiling. He said he wanted to warn me about something. He said sometimes when he looks at people he can see that the thing that moved into his face wants to move somewhere else.
He said he was trying not to look at people.
He said he was especially trying not to look at me.
He went home. I've been working from home since then. I don't go to the mailbox in the morning anymore.
But sometimes, through my window, I can see him sitting on his porch, looking at my house.
Smiling.