Title: Entry - 003
Date of Occurrence: 03-28-26XX
Date Released: 04-21-26XX
It's breakfast on a Saturday, which means I was able to sleep in (an hour is added on Saturdays, granting me some "beauty sleep"). At the Facility, breakfast is served before the Sun comes up, and even though I am very rarely hungry first thing in the morning, I do end up eating whatever old, yet not yet stale, pastries they offer us. In other words, I have trained my body to at least tolerate some type of consumption, though it is not always the case.
This morning, due to it being a Saturday, the cafeteria was busy. Double, if not tripple, the usual number of constituents. This is due to the sharing of the space with the other half of the Facility (which I won't get into detail, but basically the Facility is devided into two buildings, and on Saturdays we are combined for the meals). I, as usual, skip the line of the "hot breakfast", and go directly to the white long plastic table at the far right corner of the cafeteria, where all the pastries usually lay waiting for us to rescue them from their previous designated final destination (the trash), and well... eat them. Most of the time they are still fresh enough, perhaps just a couple days past the experation date, which is no issue for me, since it is still food. And I, well, am thankful for whatever I can get my hands on.
After grabbing my food, I make my way to my usual seat, which I always find it suprising that it is open, even on mornings like this one, where the cafeteria is hard to navigate. Like a greedy-search algorithm, I calculate the best route to "my" chair as the other half awake individuals also make their way around the room, gathering napkins, utensils, and water. Once I peacefully get to the table, sitting once more by myself, I have my breakfast, which I can't recall what it was exactly, and wait to go back upstairs to actually start my day.
After about five minutes of sitting, I look around and see other people start to leave. My "green light" to do the same, for in my head, the faster I get out of the Facility for the day the better. So... I make my way to the trash, to dispose of the foam bowl, and also grab some water at the Gatorate type plastic barrel thing they use for water (probably tap water tbh, but who is even afraid of dying at this point). Anyways, I start making my way to the stairs, keeping my head down as I walk through the tables of men looking at me as if I am prey. Maybe they aren't, but I do feel a sense of unease around them, and that is enough for me to put a guard up.
And so, by the time I make it to the last table, where a man sits alone eating grits and sausage, the peak of American breakfast food, I am almost releaved I've had no need for interaction before the Sun shines its rays through the double door windows.
Well, of course my hopes were immediately crushed, as the man at the last table looks up at me, who was just casually walking by, silently. BY MYSELF AND TO MYSELF. He starts shouting the following word at me (and ladies, be aware that this might be a trigger for many): Smile!
The first time this word lands on my ear I almost freeze.
"Smile," he says a second time. I keep walking, but the rage inside of me is now surfacing. I keep calm though. Or at least I tell myself that, because in truth part of me has frozen.
And then he says it again. Louder now, like a parrot who only knows a handful of words.
I walk past him, pretending the commands weren't made for me, though they clearly were.
I make it to the steps, heart racing. I immediately think of different ways I could've handled the scenerio, none of them which involve smiling. No. That would never happen in such a scenerio. Specially since most people at the Facility have been commenting on my teeth.
"Oh! You have a beautiful smile!" one says.
"Oh! Wow! What nice white teeth you have!" the other.
At first I didn't think much of it, but now... Well, now it feels like a secret plot to get my teeth is forming. Not literally of course, but the feeling that perhaps my smile should be reserved for those outside of the Facility has crossed my mind. Though I fear my heart might become bitter due to it. And don't get me wrong, I do love my smile. It is one of the few things I have enhirited from my mother. But just today, as I am writting this, I have gotten two compliments on my teeth and smile. The frequency of these compliments is just odd to me. Never in my life have I received so many comments on my smile before, and I have not been the type to reserve it. My smile is far from a rare animal coming out of hybernation.
Anyways, I could definetely share the ways in which I wish I could've reacted at the above inconvinence. Many of them which are extremely violent, gory fantasies that are just not worth sharing. After all, the event is long gone by now.