Not Andersen Prunty

He liked to make faces in the mirror.

He’d always been told, because he had a naturally tense and dour expression, that if he made too many ugly faces, he’d get stuck that way.

But mostly, if he wasn’t making faces in the mirror, he just saw himself as he was—tense and dour. Boring. Unremarkable. Maybe a bit severe.

Sometimes he tried to make faces, express himself in certain ways, that would make him seem more interesting or attractive. He found himself laughing at these, or maybe at the idea of these.

The ones that really made him laugh were the ugly ones.

Sometimes he would try those faces out at work or in public and, surprisingly, no one ever said anything.

They could tell he was probably going through something.