Hi guys, I wrote this short story a little while ago, and figured this would be a great platform to hear what you guys think! Its called "His Jawless Smile" enjoy!

A once complacent woman sits motionless by the phone, rigorously rehearsing the chastising, and

scolding she’ll unleash on her tardy son. She silently seethes, spiting out the words in her head

“You’ve left me worried” or “Not a single call,” to end dramatically with the pounding down of the

phone, which parallels the pounding of her heart as she waits.

Negative thoughts seem to immobilize her further. She’s alone. Left. Worrying. She reflects on

how their irrational love hate relationship has fuelled her reactions. The scheduled phone calls seize

to continue, and as days turn to weeks she regrets the previous calls, the nagging, the        

bickering, for they are now nothing but seemingly distant words and inerasable memories.

In her eyes this was all her fault, if only her earlier complaints of his unemployment stayed a hushed

whisper in her head. She reminisces. Her biggest pet hate, now a very much welcomed sight to see,

she yearns to walk into the lounge and find his body sprawled lazily across the family furniture.

Unfortunately life is no fairytale and like the hollow promise of regular phone calls, her wish is left

unanswered.

Years pass, but still, she waits.

Memorials are made as his whereabouts remain unknown, a makeshift funeral of his favourite

belongings are tossed in his bodiless coffin and buried deep underfoot. Perhaps somewhere his

body lay underfoot, who knows, who knew, and who will ever find out.

The now tearless woman goes about her day, forcing a smile at those who spare a second glance,

and the phone, a once regularly used utensil lay lifelessly in its holder.  A ring of an unusual kind

echoes down the hall. In a droid like motion she gets up and answers the door.

Two oversized men greet her cradling a very familiar materialistic, yet somewhat withered

possession she vividly recognises as an item she’d laundered time and time before. She gasps for

breath. Could these average Joe’s be the light at the end of her tunnel? The suppliers of all her  

unanswered questions? What did they know? And why did it take so long to find out? She

lashes out at the men, bloated with rage, profoundly pounding on one of the men’s chests like a

snare drum. Her outburst only justified by the lack of emotions this now jaded women seems to

possess. She’d stopped living a long time ago, in her eyes her existence is only warranted by the

hopeful recovery of her son. On countless occasions she’d sit and anticipate her reaction to

the words she could only wish to exit from either of the men’s mouths. At last they come.

“We’ve found your son”. These words, four little, single syllable words, she’d been waiting to hear

for years, now expressed in the most unwanting of circumstances. With the realisation that this

conversation is real and not another faucet of her tormenting dreams, she welcomes the men in

baring her once ever so common, welting eyes.

For the first time in a long while the silence is welcomed too, the soundless room says so much,

gives so much comfort and answers all her questions. But this silence is to be one of only

temporary comfort as the men have a job to do.

They explain to her in detail the findings of her son, just a disfigured face, a limbless skull lay

dormant under the shade of a beautiful pear tree off the shores of a now prevalent tourist

destination. He had stood on a land mine patrolling the beach back in the summer of 45’ but with an

accidental misspelling of his name on the duty card, his whereabouts and missing went unreported.

The response is minimal. Satisfaction of his final whereabouts gives her relief but the end of a

dream, the perhaps reuniting of her lost, but very alive son, seizes to continue. Her attention is

drawn to the belongings in one of the men’s hand. “This was the only intact personal possession of

your son’s, found buried at the scene,” one of the men uncomfortably noted. “Ironic huh? How a

delicate handkerchief can be the only thing to withstand such a heavy blow,” she mutters in an

unenthusiastic tone. She is handed the bundled up handkerchief and realising it has an inner

content, unravels it.

“They were what identified your son, ma’am”, the teeth that once sat snug in his head and reflected

his every emotion, pile up ever so loosely in the crevice of her hands. All she can do is cradle

them, they look so strange, alone, utterly jawless in a constant smile, not in the least like his. The

men came and went leaving the lone woman to grieve. She sit’s for a while but her eyes remain dry

and after pointlessly preparing herself for another sleepless night, she snaps.

Her waiting, fizzling to tragedy, her patience, everything but the key to her happiness.  How can

people suggest that patience is the key to happiness? She’s wasted so much time waiting, watching

her life pass her by. She’s now just an old woman, a completely ordinary, uninspiring woman. So

many dreams and aspirations unachieved by the passing up of opportunities as she’d wait. She peers

up at the clock, the time once again has nothing but slipped by, it’s midnight. In an explosion of her

bottled up emotions now engorging her more than ever before, she grabs the cluster of teeth, his

utterly jawless smile and hurls them out the kitchen door. Where would they land? It didn’t matter.

The broken woman collapses wirily on the kitchen floor, falling aimlessly into that stupid sleep,

knowing him dead at least, soul rested and finally home, back by her hand.