A Faceless Pair

A Story by Lilypad

A Simple Description of Familiar Faces

There is a picture of a man and a woman captured in a moment together for others to enjoy for future times. The image is familiar to all the world as either a tragedy or an icon, but there is something wrong with this painting, and it’s not the black and white outline, nor the grey lifeless background. It’s something more. The faces are erased. Who are these people? I see the sketched lines on their faces but there is no detail, there is no familiar face. When you see these two figures, your mind projects a look and a body of who these people should be, almost like a generic figure without lines or spots. I can describe my neighbor better than these people, however I see and hear more about those two than I see or hear about my neighbor. I can see the crooked nose and the dark spot on the corner of my neighbor’s lower lip, but these two people I only see a simple smooth lip and a simple smooth nose, nothing more and nothing less. I cannot see any characteristics to the facades I think I know so well. The brain automatically plants a nose, two eyes, and a mouth on them, but I don’t even know where their frown lines are held. The media inflicts the two figure and programs them to be memorized in my head, yet I don’t even know where the corner of their mouth ends. Perhaps they are just silhouettes looking back at the painter who fills in the gaps of their faces. Maybe they are just faceless bodies with familiar figures, maybe they are smiling in their portrait, or maybe they are frowning from the obstacles they encounter. I will never know what are behind those invisible eyes. So brain, please stop filling in blank spaces with assumptions and predictions and just take a rest: let them be the faceless painting.