And he gave me that same smile. That same interested smile he gave his TV show, and his patients, and for the first time I realized it was not a human smile. It was a protective coloration. An adaptation of some sort. He would project it equally at a television, or a son, or a houseplant, but whatever was really inside him was crouched and peering out stealthily. “Let me know,” he said, “if you’d like to talk.”
Source: Ill Will by Dan Chaon »
Tagged in: suffering
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