Bianca’s Wondrous Smile

Bianca had been a true beauty since she was born. The doctor who received her proclaimed, “This girl is beautiful!” and her mother exclaimed when she saw her and put it on her chest, still wet, “How pretty you are, my little baby!”

As she grew older, Bianca became more beautiful every day. And her smile lit up everyone around her, filling the world with wondrous energy and peace.

But no one knew her secret: every night, when she was getting ready for bed, her mother would smile at her with the most wonderful smile you could imagine, full of love, understanding and tenderness.

A smile flavored with vanilla, raspberry jam and lemon, avocado, plum and coconut, scented with freshly cut grass, lavender and mint, roses and jasmine, thyme and basil, orange and peach, with rainbow glitter and wings of butterflies and hummingbirds, with the crackling of the firewood in the hearth and the ringing of a recess bell, with grandmother’s pampering and apple tart and cinnamon rolls, with coffee and plain toast and butter, pancakes and maple syrup, with cold chocolate milk in summer, with caresses of sun rays in winter and drops of fresh rain in spring, with yellow and brown chestnut oak leaves and colorful sunsets in autumn, with hugs and kisses, with cotton and velvet. Bianca recharged her joy from within her soul and gradually fell asleep, while her mother quietly sang a sweet lullaby.

Then she rested wrapped in silken clouds with a renewed smile.

Marcelo Medone is a fiction writer, poet, and screenwriter. His works have received awards and have been published in magazines and books, both in digital and paper format, individually or in anthologies, in multiple languages in more than 30 countries all over the world, including 101 Words, The Dribble Drabble Review, Potato Soup Journal, The Chamber Magazine, Rio Grande Review, (mac)ro(mic), The Cafe Irreal, Six Sentences, Skink Beat Review, Blink Ink Print, Bombfire, and Otherwise Engaged Journal in the US.