Writing Duel #1

Prompt: Write about the most beautiful smile you've ever seen.
# 1
Sometimes life sucks. You get sick or hurt, friends exit your life, family members die, problems seem unsolvable, sadness creeps into the corners of your mind and takes over your life for no reason at all. But even when your heart feels dull and achy and the only emotion you can feel is sorrow, the Earth keeps spinning.
Outside, a bird learns to fly. It feels amazing and natural. The world whizzes by under him in a blend of green. He passes over a family burying their beloved dog. They look mournfully down at the ground as they remember all of the good times. Questions with no answers taunt them in the back of their minds. Later, they put away the shovel and see their neighbor getting his mail. He is a frail old man whose name they don't even know. They wave politely. The old man goes back inside, where he continues to write his will. It is a strange feeling, knowing that your time is almost up. His daughter, who takes care of him during the day, enters the room and sees what her father is writing. Tears run down her cheeks, and she turns away. Back home that night, she cooks her own daughter's favorite meal. They sit down and talk to each other. They hadn't done that in a while. The daughter notices that her mother has changed. She seems older, more tired. Later, she cancels plans to hang out with her friends, and decides to spend time with her mom instead.
The sky gets darker but the stars get brighter. The mother and daughter go outside to sit in the cool grass and look at them. They're beautiful. Together in the dark, they gaze up at the sky and smile.
In his bed of ratty blankets, the old man awakes and peers out the window next to him. Why hadn't he ever noticed how dazzling the sky is at night? He is glad that he got to see the stars before it is too late. Finally feeling a sense of peace, he smiles.
The family of the deceased dog sits inside. The TV is on, but it is only background noise to their flashing thoughts. Their youngest son gets up and opens the back door. His family follows him. The youth's head tilts upwards as he notices the magnificent image above. Everybody looks, and comforts themselves in thinking that maybe their dog is there now. Slowly, they smile.
The bird rests with its young siblings, safe in a tree outside. You are curled up on your floor, crying into the darkness. Finally you get up because you hear something. Crickets. Their musical chirp soothes you. You open your window so that you can hear them louder, and you see the sky. You see the silhouettes of trees and the shapes of houses. There are people in them, going on with their lives just as you are. None of them know about you, but you don't know anything about them either. Life is still happening around you, and you are part of it. Breathing in the night air deeply, you smile at last.
Sometimes life sucks. But does it really? Maybe you're not noticing the right things.
The most beautiful smile comes from the face that swallows sorrows and appreciates the simplicity of life.

# 2
The most beautiful smile I have ever seen is also the one that haunts me the most. That smile has torn me apart inside. That smile was my joy, my demon, my tormentor, my benefactor. It is the smile I did not have until I needed it, and that I did not need until it was gone. It was my mother’s, and it is why I am now in this padded cell, where I am fed from a syringe and where paper is my only companion.
I had grown up poor. There was never any doubt of it. My no good drunkard of a father had left when I was born, and my mother was just trying to survive. I always tried to behave myself, tried to keep out of trouble. I was reminded by my mother, whenever she was awake and sober, that I was lucky to have a home at all. As I grew older, I learned to stop asking for things. When I did build up the courage to ask for new shoes or seconds at dinner, she would always get a funny look on her face, like she swallowed a very hot potato and it would not go down. I grew to hate that face. It made me feel sad, though at the time I never could figure out why. When I was eleven, I asked her for a bicycle like Frankie down the street had. She got that funny potato-look, but then it evaporated into something even more odd. A sort of half smile-half sobbing look, I suppose. She got up from the kitchen table and walked out the door. Mystified, I followed her. She did not seem to see me, so I followed her all the way to the bridge. When we were almost there, she turned to look at me.
“Go home, David.” She ordered, her voice cracking a little. I nodded and began to walk away, but I did not actually go home. I went to the street just below the bridge and watched to see what she was doing. I do not know what I was expecting, but it was not this. She sat on the edge, looking down at me. There was no way she could have seen me, but I will swear on my life that she did. We locked eyes, and she smiled. That smile held so much. Never once in my life had she said “I love you”, but her eyes did then. She told me, without any words, but with the eloquence of a poet instead of a cloudy eyed high school dropout, how sorry she was that she could never give me that bicycle. She told me she was sorry she was never sober, that she was sorry about all of the male “friends” she brought home, about the cigarette stains on the rug. And she said she was sorry for what she was about to do. Immediately before my eyes flashed an image of what our lives could be now, as soon as she finished whatever she was doing on the bridge, of lollipops and days at the zoo, and scholarships and hugs. I smiled eagerly at her. Then she jumped. And it was my fault. It was all my fault.