Genuine expressions of emotion rarely persist longer than five

Host: The elevator hummed quietly, climbing through the steel veins of a corporate tower. The floor numbers blinked in steady rhythm, like the pulse of something mechanical, inhuman. The air was sterile—smelling faintly of coffee, perfume, and fear disguised as ambition.

At the thirty-second floor, the doors slid open with a muted chime. The office beyond was all glass and silence—rows of desks, glowing screens, and people wearing expressions that had been practiced into perfection.

Jack sat in the corner conference room, his suit immaculate, his tie tight enough to strangle the last breath of comfort. He was staring at the window, at his own reflection, watching how his mouth curved upward just slightly—a smile with no origin.

Across from him, Jeeny entered quietly, holding two cups of coffee. Her movements were fluid, deliberate, unpretentious. She placed one before him and sat, her eyes steady, the faintest trace of warmth beneath fatigue.

Jeeny: “You’ve been smiling at that window for five minutes, Jack. You trying to convince it or yourself?”

Jack: “They say a smile gets you through the day. Pamela Meyer would probably call that a lie.”

Host: Jack’s tone was dry, edged with irony. He leaned back, the chair creaking slightly, his reflection breaking against the city lights behind the glass.

Jeeny: “She’s right, though. Genuine emotion doesn’t last long. It’s not meant to. It comes, it burns, and it leaves. What lingers… that’s performance.”

Jack: “Performance keeps the world running. You think these people out there”—he gestured to the office—“want truth? They want comfort. A fixed smile, a nod, a calm face. The machinery of survival.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound mechanical.”

Jack: “It is. Try walking into a meeting with your real emotions showing. You’ll be out before lunch. The system doesn’t reward honesty—it punishes it.”

Host: A faint beep echoed from a copier nearby, a mechanical heartbeat cutting through the quiet. Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of her coffee cup, the steam rising like a fragile ghost.

Jeeny: “And yet every lie we wear leaves a scar, doesn’t it? You can only fake calm for so long before your nerves start to show.”

Jack: “That’s the point. You learn to hide the nerves too.”

Jeeny: “At what cost?”

Jack: “Peace.”

Jeeny: “That’s not peace. That’s numbness.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, but her eyes didn’t. There was fire in them—small but real, the kind that refuses to be extinguished by office air-conditioning.

Jack: “You talk like emotion is sacred. It’s not. It’s data. Instinct. Temporary chemical storms. Meyer wasn’t wrong—real emotion burns out in seconds. Everything after that is us pretending to care longer than we really do.”

Jeeny: “Maybe pretending is just our way of trying to make meaning last. Isn’t that what art is? Love? Faith? They all outlive the moment. Even if the initial spark dies, we keep feeding the memory of it.”

Jack: “That’s nostalgia, not truth. Truth is that you can’t hold onto emotion. You can only perform it, and the better you perform, the safer you are.”

Jeeny: “Safe from what?”

Jack: “From rejection. From the chaos of sincerity. From being the only one in a room who feels too much.”

Host: The city stretched below them like a grid of cold light. The sky was beginning to darken, and the faint reflection of passing clouds drifted across the windows, painting their faces with moving shadows.

Jeeny: “Do you remember when you used to talk about meaning, Jack? Before all this?”

Jack: “Meaning gets expensive when you have bills.”

Jeeny: “And cheaper when you lose yourself.”

Host: There was a pause—an electric silence charged with unspoken memory. Jeeny’s hand trembled slightly, not from fear but from the ache of recognition.

Jack: “Look, Meyer was just describing what people don’t want to admit. Real emotion is fleeting. You can measure it—heart rate spikes, facial micro-expressions, muscle contractions. Ten seconds at best. After that, it’s all mimicry.”

Jeeny: “Then why do we remember it for years? Why can one brief look, one real smile, change the course of a life?”

Jack: “Because memory lies too. It edits, amplifies. You remember the feeling, not the moment.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You remember the truth of it. The body may forget, but the soul doesn’t.”

Host: The lights in the office flickered; a few employees began to leave, their smiles automatic, their goodbyes hollow. The echo of high heels against tile faded down the hallway.

Jeeny: “Look at them. Every day they smile, they nod, they pretend. But behind every mask there’s exhaustion, longing, quiet despair. Don’t you see? The fixed smile isn’t protection—it’s decay.”

Jack: “Maybe. But without it, the world would fall apart. Imagine if every emotion showed itself raw and unfiltered—traffic jams would end in riots, offices would drown in breakdowns. Civilization runs on restraint.”

Jeeny: “Restraint is different from suppression. You’re confusing control with denial.”

Jack: “And you’re confusing authenticity with chaos.”

Host: The tension between them was a living thing now—coiling, breathing. The air had grown dense, heavy with something that neither wanted to name.

Jeeny: “You think truth is dangerous. I think lies are lethal.”

Jack: “Truth gets you fired. Lies get you promoted.”

Jeeny: “Truth gets you free.”

Host: Her words hung there, trembling in the sterile light, like a note from a song that refused to fade.

Jack: “Free? You mean exposed. Vulnerable. Naked in a room of wolves.”

Jeeny: “Wolves respect teeth, Jack. Even if they’re shaking.”

Host: A low rumble of thunder rolled through the distant sky. Outside, rain began to streak the glass, blurring the city into impressionistic smears of color—red, blue, white.

Jack: “You really think a smile can lie that much?”

Jeeny: “Every day. A smile can hide grief, guilt, fear. Pamela Meyer called it—when the smile freezes, it’s a mask. A frozen moment hiding all the emotion that’s been buried alive.”

Jack: “And yet people keep smiling.”

Jeeny: “Because they’re terrified of being seen.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her voice now barely above a whisper.

Jeeny: “You ever look in the mirror and wonder what you’re hiding from yourself, Jack? You keep smiling, but it doesn’t reach your eyes anymore.”

Jack: “And you? You cry behind closed doors and call it honesty. We’re all liars, Jeeny. Some of us just do it with better posture.”

Host: The line hit her like a slow blade. She looked down, biting her lip, the faintest quiver in her jaw. Then, she smiled—softly, genuinely, for five fleeting seconds.

Jeeny: “Then maybe the trick isn’t to stop lying. Maybe it’s to make the lie mean something true.”

Jack: “You mean fake it till you make it?”

Jeeny: “No. Feel it till it fades. And then let it go.”

Host: The rain stopped as suddenly as it began. The last drops slid down the window, leaving faint trails that caught the city’s glow. Jack exhaled, long and slow, as if letting go of something old and invisible.

Jack: “You know, for a moment there, you almost made me feel something real.”

Jeeny: “Then it must have lasted about five seconds.”

Host: They both laughed—quietly, not the way colleagues laugh, but the way old friends do when they recognize their shared exhaustion. It wasn’t happiness. It was release.

The office lights dimmed, and the city outside came alive in neon reflection. Their smiles faded, but the warmth didn’t. For the first time in a long while, they weren’t hiding behind their faces.

And in that fleeting, human silence—ten seconds of truth—they understood Pamela Meyer’s warning:
That masks protect, but they also imprison.
That emotion, however brief, is real precisely because it must fade.
And that sometimes, the most honest part of a smile…
is when it disappears.