I started my essay in the customary manner. I started it the same way I always started it. I always start it in the way that I always start it. ‘The happy people were happy because of the great product’, I wrote. The happy people, the happy people. The happy people, the smiling people. The Smilers, all those Smilers. Can you see them? If you can’t then look closer because they are there. They’re there for sure, blending in skillfully with the crowd. They are the crowd. Smiling all the while. Smiling to beat the band. Smiling even when they aren’t happy and they aren’t ever happy, not really. They’re only pretending, you see. It’s all a show, all a great big show. It’s a Garden full of Smiles. ‘Welcome to the Garden’, I feel like saying, only I don’t. I’m too frightened to say it – too frightened of the Smilers and their sneaky ways. I’m a coward at heart you see – a terrible, terrible coward. I’m scared of my own shadow – I’m especially scared of my own shadow. Its evil, you see. Pure evil. Evil Incarnate. Always plotting bad things. It’s my shadow, after all – what else would you expect? I’m a coward underneath it all, beneath all the talk and bluster. Beneath all the cocksure mouthiness that I always come out with. I’m a mass of quivering jelly really. Jumping out of my skin of the slightest noise. Look at those dirty old Smilers, would you? They think they own the place. So damn full of themselves. Completely obsessed with their own self-centred narratives. Bending everything to make it relevant to them. The nasty old Smilers. Everyone hates them, of course. They hate themselves but that doesn’t stop them smiling! Nothing stops them smiling. All the smiling happy people, all of them having such a good time. They brought the Product you see – that’s what does it. That does it every time. All the happy smiling people – always buying the product. They never stop. They’ll come right up to you and smile at you, just to show that they’re having a great time. They’ll smile until their faces hurt because that’s what it’s all about. That will do it every time you see. You can bet your bottom dollar it will. You can gamble away your inheritance. ‘Welcome to the Garden!’ I shout, and then immediately wished that I hadn’t. ‘Least said soonest mended’. Try not to rock the boat because that’s never a very smart thing to do, after all. You’ll wish you hadn’t. I knew the Secret Word however and that was going to save me. I muttered it under my breath over and over again. This Secret Word is going to save me only it won’t. Everyone knows it won’t – even I know it, but I’m pretending that it will. Pretending is all I’ve got left to me, you see you. That’s the only tool in my toolbox. I’m a one trick pony and that’s the only trick I know…