The Currency of Teeth

There is a weight to a smile that is not earned. We are taught early that to show one’s teeth is a sign of aggression, a baring of weapons. Yet, in the places where the world is stripped of its heavy machinery, the smile becomes something else entirely. It is a sudden, bright flare in the gray. It asks for nothing. It expects no return. It is a brief, fragile truce between two strangers who share nothing but the air they breathe for a single, passing second. We spend our lives building walls, measuring the distance between ourselves and the next person, calculating the cost of being known. Then, someone offers a grin, and the walls seem less like stone and more like paper. It is a dangerous thing, this openness. It leaves you exposed to the cold. But what is the alternative? To remain behind the glass, watching the light fade without ever feeling the warmth of it on your own skin?

Prasanta Singha has taken this beautiful image titled Smileys. It captures a moment where the distance between two worlds simply ceases to exist. Does it make you want to lower your guard?