My Face

I almost get a surprise when I look in the mirror in the morning - "Oh, it's you again..." I say to my reflection, "...still there then?"

By now I've got to know myself pretty well and have grown accustomed to the gradual changes and wrinkles appearing. Well, I have been living in my face for a long time as proved by my backward twin.

Fortunatley I am still friends with this other face looking back with the same expression revealing the emotion of the moment.

Occasionally I fall out with my two dimensional doppleganger and sometimes with good reason. My reflection has no conscience, which may be fortunate (for him) he just tells it as it is.

Mask by mask, grimace by grimace, he will copy in perfect time my visual image.What a mimic! If I grow a hair - he grows one. If I put on glasses - so does he.

If I envy my transposed double it is becasue he only has to reflect any pain and can disappear when I leave. However, he can laugh at me as I laugh back. He has his uses - when I shave he pulls all the right bits for scraping.

Facial expressions are catching - smile at the mirror and it smiles back - smile at other people and you may infect their emotions. Normally I have control over the image facing me - a power that means I can pretend and make this other me look grim or glad. And sometimes I get some dirty looks.

Often, I really don't want to see him (he does not have that choice) but vanity or curiosity prevails.

When I cut my hair at the back I use another mirror to see the back of my head and the strange thing is that the doubles double is still the wrong way round. All the movements I make with hands are backwards in the face mirror but correct in the double mirror and then the movements have to be reversed to match reality - what is weird is that the real life left-to-right is very hard to perform as we are used to looking and performing backwards.

Im leaving now, with a smile and hope he's smiling when I return. You can have one too.

Tony Dickins

Your Face

I suppose you think just because you have a face on the front of your head that you think you own it.

Ownership may be a contentious issue.

I mean you didn't buy your face did you?

I bet you haven't got a receipt for it and
knowing your high principles I am sure you
didn't nick it, half inch it, borrow it from a
(now) faceless bureaucrat, extricate it from a rubbish skip, discover that it had fallen from the back of a lorry, get a snip down the market or find it under a bush.

"A gift!" you say, (no comment).

So, who gave you the gift?

Answers of a religious nature on
a postcard please to anyone but me.

OK, hands up, I've got one too and I call it mine.

Whether we like it or not we've all got one
(some people have two).
         

We do things with it like poke it where it's not wanted, put it to music when there's trouble, turn it about, put stuff on it to (supposedly) make it more attractive, hide it, contort it, pull funny ones, make another one, put on a brave one, admire it, or not, in the mirror, also, in the right place - hope it fits, and be chuffed to bits to see a flattering photo of it.

Now there's an issue: If someone takes a photo of it, with or without permission, who owns the copyright?
The photographer, or you?

Well, without delving deep into the pedantics and philosophy behind copyright law, your face, because it is more often than not on view to anyone who happens to look your way, is actually public domain.

That means that you don't really own your face at all, it belongs to everyone and anybody.

So, for the sake of anybody and everyone who owns yours - have a smile on it.