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'What's with your emoticon?' she asked.

'How do you mean?' said I.

'Most people use only one dash for the nose, you use two; so tell me why?'

'I like to be different,' I replied. 'I'm different if I like it or not.'

'There must be more to it than that,' she persisted.

'Indeed there is,' I replied. 'It's because I suffer from depression.'.

'We all suffer from your depression,' she smirked. 'But I still don't get it.'

"Why the long face?" I quoted.

'Do what?' she queried.

'That's what people always ask: "Why the long face?" So my emoticon has a long face too.'

'Aha!' She crowed triumphantly. 'So why then is it smiling, if it's feeling so depressed?'

'Because they also say "how can you be depressed, whenever I see you you're smiling?".

'They might have a point,' she rejoined.

'But,' I replied. 'The smile is too often a mask. I look at life over the shoulder of my depression, I smile around my pain.'

'Now I understand,' she smiled, empathy glistening at the corner of one eye.
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copyright DM pamment 28th November 2010