Inspired by an incident that happened many years ago in South India.

The Broken Smile
By John Herlihy

I
“Hello sir, how are you?”
Startled out of my reverie, I looked up in surprise.
“Very well, thank you,” I said in return without telling a lie.
The measured British accent came from a young child,
Sitting next to me in the common room in the jungle wild,
At an Ayurveda clinic outside of Cochin, India, where I sat with quiet élan,
Refreshed by the gentle breezes of the slow-moving, tropical ceiling fan.
I was being treated for a chronic case of tendonitis lodged within the shoulder;
The little boy was being treated for a sinister disease much, much bolder.
I looked down into the eyes of the innocent, young face,
No doubt full of the devil, but appearing happy and full of grace.
Upon closer inspection, I soon discovered something gone awry,
His smile was paralyzed, crooked and no longer flexible and spry;
The mouth frozen in an unholy attitude, almost a sneer, beyond his control.
The boy’s smile seemed an unforgivable error written upon a heavenly scroll.
I was tempted to look away so as not too closely this aberration to behold;
But some voice inside me whispered otherwise from what my instincts told.

II
I do not like to impose myself in strange and unfamiliar forums.
I quietly keep to myself with no need to break my sense of decorum.
As foreigner, if the locals wanted to speak to me, I responded in kind,
Exchanging pleasantries of no consequence that were on my mind;
But the child clearly and happily took an unexpected interest in me.
We usually met up in the later afternoon for chit-chat and high tea.
I was amused at the charming manner in which he spoke his British English,
As if he were an earl of the British empire and among the distinguished.
The boy had all kinds of interests and I talked as I would with my own son.
I encouraged him what to read including Dickens, Twain and R L Stevenson.
He expressed a liking for tales of true adventure and stories of fantasy fiction,
Sometimes he would read me excerpts from his books in impeccable diction.
Mornings were left for medical treatments that dated back a thousand years,
My heart softened for the child as the days of treatments turned into weeks,
We got to know each other quite closely, as our moods hit troughs and peaks.
The medical treatments for our problems were handled with meticulous care,
And we valued the free time we had together, our treasured moments to spare.

III
The time eventually arrived when we had to bid each other goodbye.
I had grown to love the endearing child whose crooked smile was his unique reply.
The boy and his father insisted on coming down early on the day of my departure.
They wanted to say goodbye in person one last time at this sad moment of parting.
In the predawn darkness, the canaries awakened the world from the tamarind trees,
As I gazed into the sweet, innocent face of the child, I felt on my face a gentle breeze.
The boy took from his pocket a small gift and handed it over shyly to me,
I opened the little box and lifted up a glass ball key chain more closely to see.
“It has a compass inside the ball,” the child told me soberly without a smile,
“Indeed it does,” I replied, taking note of the direction North where I knew it to be.
“If you get lost, it will show you the way,” he said finally about to turn away.
For one final moment, I took in the brave face of the child and the crooked grin.
“Thank you, Manu,” I said, for that was his name. “I may need it someday.”
I remember those were my final words to him and added my own broken smile,
Before climbing into the antiquated car that would take me away in style.
Across the Indian countryside, the scent of jasmine and steamy earth filled the air,
The pale light of the waning moon shone upon jungle ferns like a silent prayer,
While this fresh memory was tucked away outside of time, waiting to be shared.