He stood in front of his bedroom mirror, expressionless.
It was the sort of look that you had to have for a passport photo. No smiling or raised eyebrows or protruding lips, just your face. Simply pokerfaced, deadpan, vacant, just blank. He was holding it steady. This was the baseline, a blank facial expression. The one that you start with before creating. Preparation was everything and deception was an art. He had to create, and once created, practice, control, and maintain. Once he’d perfected ‘the look’, he had to be able to turn it on instantly. This would need to be done without hesitation. This was where the practice came in. This would be the point where endless repetitions were required. The development of an on queue expression that comes up perfectly with no visible effort.
After twenty long minutes he had it right. It was exactly what he needed. Now came the repetition, that precise look over and over again. After a further gruelling five minutes of this, the turning of the head to face the mirror came next. Turning, each time, and in an instant wearing the precise look.
It was at this point that he heard it. The clattering at the front door. A murmuring of voices downstairs. His voice raised, hers now silent. Moments passed before the inevitable call up the stairs.
“Son, can you come down a minute?”
He braced himself, and after one final brief check in the mirror, made his way down the stairs.
As he entered the living room, his father asked, “Do you know anything about the broken window at the front?”
The boy turned and looked…
