Creative Writing Assignment

"The most beautiful smile I ever saw…"

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The most beautiful smile I ever saw was hardly even a smile at all. It was little more than a slight upturning of her lips and small delicate crinkles at the corners of her tear-filled eyes. Despite how her face had swollen from crying, despite the bruise that was blooming around the cut on her cheek, she was radiant. Perhaps it was the solemn conviction in her glassy eyes, or perhaps it was the light from the window behind her that formed a sort of halo around her, but in that moment I knew that this was a girl who was born to be a martyr.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I forgot she had yet to give me the answer to my question, the answer I knew she would give.

"It's kind of you to offer," she said quietly. "But I can't stay with you. You know that."

I nodded and made a sort of choked hum in the back of my throat to convey my understanding, though I could feel a few of my own tears welling. Why, why, did it have to be her, of all people? Why was it this girl who had allowed herself to have such a duty thrust upon her? She was not, as so many believed, a messiah or a savior. She was a good person, better than most, the best, maybe. But she was hewn of flesh and bone, just as I. 

I frowned at this train of thought. Was that not how all messiahs started out? Flesh and bone?

Perhaps her believers were right in a way. I knew that after she had made a corpse of herself, she would become what they said she was. Flesh and bone can only contain divinity for so long before it’s consumed. Perhaps that explained why the best people burn bright and fast; organic matter can accommodate that sliver of divinity for a length of time that amounts to a cosmic millisecond before it immolates.

Sighing, I smiled wanly at her. “Of course. I understand,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Go, then. Go do what you must do.”

Without another word she nodded and turned away from me, her combat boots leaving sooty footprints in my pristine carpet as she walked to the door. I watched her leave my office, and then turned to my window to watch her exit the building a minute or two later. She strode, without hesitation, down the street and towards the war-zone that was the center of the city. I couldn’t help but feel that I was watching her go to her death sentence.