The Musculature Of Sorrow
This story and the two companion pieces that follow it I would love to dedicate to the memory of the great Kurt Vonnegut Jr..So it goes. Thank you all
The city, a place of precise administration, was experiencing a profound sociological crisis:a mass epidemic of frowning. Meneer Engelbrecht, a man of simple habits, noticed it first at the magwinya queue. The woman who sold magwinya was frowning.Her eyebrows were so low they seemed to be contemplating her chin. ''Bad day mevrou Makunga? '' Engelbrecht asked, attempting a polite smile. The magwinya woman grunted, ''My face is tired.'' The epidemic spread. From the rural farms of Wolwehoek to the exquisite mystery hamlets of Modderfontein to the far flung outskirts of Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein the frowning disease spread. Soon everyone was frowning. The comedians frowned.The clowns frowned. The professional mourners and the unpaid liars joined in the fun and frowned. The city became a landscape of intense muscular tension.
Engelbrecht, a man who possessed a curious piece of information, tried to fix the problem. He approached a man who was proposing to a pretty woman and frowning so hard his eyes were almost closed. The woman fled in panic. ''Sir,'' Engelbrecht began, '' did you know it takes seventy four muscles to frown?'' The man stopped frowning, momentarily intrigued. '' Seventy four?'' ''Yes. A great expenditure of musculature. An inefficient use of the human form.'' The man frowned again, seventy four muscles pulling tight. '' I do not care for efficiency.'' Engelbrecht tried his next piece of information. '' But it takes only three muscles to smile.'' The man looked at him blankly, ''Three.'' '' Yes! Think of the energy saved!'' Engelbrecht demonstrated, pulling his three smiling muscles tight. The man stared at him as if he were mad. ''Who counts such things? Three muscles is a fraud of a smile. A lazy smile. A morally dubious smile.'' He frowned harder than ever, seventy four muscles working in unison. The city became a place where the frown was the standard. Engelbrecht with his three muscle smile was declared an outcast. He was inefficient in his sadness. The Powers That Be issued a decree: All Citizens Must Frown With At Least Sixty Eight Muscles abreviated to ACMFWALSEM and those who forgot what the abbreviation meant got their electricity and water cut and forced to pay a hefty bribe to the officials. Engelbrecht who was now calling himself Angie in a last futile attempt to make people smile was forced to excercise his face until he could frown properly, the true and proper way. It was a sad life for Engelbrecht, a man forced to waste muscle mass for the sake of conformity.To this day the city is a monument to efficient frowning.
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