Prologue[]
I was sitting in the interrogation room, waiting for the detective to return. He had been gone for an hour, and I started to grow impatient. He finally came back, sat down, and said,
"Do you know why we're here?"
"Yeah." I said
"So can you tell me what happened?"
I then told him my story:
My Story[]
You know, it's crazy to think about some of the the things that people do in their free time.
Me? I like to spend most of my day binge watching my favorite TV shows, seasons at a time. I know a lot of other people do that as well, so I really don't feel alone. Some of my friends have some unusual hobbies, like my friend Gary, who I've known for about five years. He collects bottle caps off of discontinued sodas. It's pretty strange to me, but I'm not gonna judge.
Some peoples' hobbies are far stranger than that, like the one I'm about to tell you about.
A guy I once knew, whose name was Jaron, his hobby was nothing short of bizarre. He sat on his computer, going through huge piles of children's cartoons that had been cancelled, or only aired the pilot episode. That's not it, though. He writes about the cartoons on his blog, gives them a rating from 1 to 10, and then creates bootlegged episodes of those cancelled cartoons. I've watched a few and, to be honest, they aren't bad. They ranged from those silly, Tom and Jerry-esque cartoons, to those cartoons geared towards younger children, where the main character learns a lesson.
He recently e-mailed me a bootleg. I was reluctant to watch it, because I got tired of watching them. He literally sends me about twenty of them every day, and I usually only watch four or five, just to humor him. I don't want to not watch any of them and hurt his feelings or anything like that.
I ignored the e-mail for a while, and about two hours had passed when he texted me saying,
"No."
I just thought he had texted the wrong person, so I responded,
"Dude, you just texted me the word 'no' out of nowhere. Did you text the wrong person?"
He didn't respond for about a half hour
"Yes they are."
I figured he was just messing with me. We texted back and forth for about an hour before I got pissed off and turned my phone off. Here are the texts that were sent:
Jaron: "Yes they are."
Me: "What the fuck are you talking about??"
Jaron: "How many?"
Me: "How many what? Dude, stop fucking with me, this is getting annoying."
Jaron: "Smiles and smiles"
After I turned my phone off, I decided to take a nap. I fell asleep around 2:30 PM, but I was jolted awake by the e-mail alert on my phone. At first, when I awoke, I didn't realize that I had already turned my phone off. Whatever, I told myself. My phone had recently been having problems, so I thought nothing of it.
It was the same e-mail sent by Jaron that I received hours earlier. The cartoon was titled "36." I decided to watch the cartoon. I had nothing else to do all day anyways.
It started off with a title card, that said "36 was never found"
It then cut to some static, followed by extremely distorted sounds, then cut back to the title card. This wasn't even a cartoon. I don't even know what it was.
This is stupid, I thought. But then Jaron called me. I answered the phone.
"Hello?" I said.
Jaron breathed into the phone heavily for about thirty seconds, and then said,
"Smiles and smiles."
I was really freaked out at this point. I continued to watch the video, and it just stayed on the title card for about five minutes. After that, the word "Smile." came on the screen. This is unsettling, but yet stupid and pointless at the same time.
Now people think I'm crazy.
I went into my bathroom and looked into the mirror. My mouth had been sewn shut. I must have done it when I saw the smile. No one cares though. My brother drove me to the hospital. What a fun ride. We got to the hospital, and they removed the stitches from my mouth. According to the doctor that took them out, he had removed thirty-six of them. The smile was real. It made me safe.
But no one fucking cares. No one ever cared.
And now my name is Saint Dunkan.
I killed everyone who didn't believe in the smile. They don't deserve to live. But then again, according to everyone, "I'm crazy". I'm a "psycho." They just don't understand.
"I don't believe your story, Michael." The detective said.
"IT'S SAINT DUNKAN!" I shouted.
"Sorry about that. Saint Dunkan, where can I find the 'cartoon' you watched?"
"I deleted it. But I kept the smile."
"What exactly does that mean, Dunkan?"
"You'll never know."
There was a trial, and I was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. These guys think I'm crazy. Oh well, it's better than prison. After all, I get to keep the smile here.
And they'll never take it away.