So… I’ve always liked faces. I can never tell what they say, and I’m never sure how they say it.
Once, years and years ago, at Christmas time, Bigger Bro and I were poking around under the tree, and I picked up the present he had for me. He told me to guess, and I did – and got it spot on. There was something that flickered in his eyes – I think a disappointment that I got it, and… a revelation that I was right. An acknowledgment – concession – something… that thing that told me I was right. He denied what I guessed, and I let him do it, but I knew.
It’s a cliche phrase from crappy books: “…something flickered in his eyes…” but we don’t have another way to say it just that perfectly. something flickered – flashed so quickly that there’s no way to tell exactly how long it took to twitch through the individual face muscles.
And how do we know how to read it? How fast is our brain that 1) we understand as quickly as we see… 2) that the image is stuck there – that all these years later I know what Bigger Bro’s face did and can feel the effect of it… 3) how miniscule were the muscle twitches? And WAS it all muscle twitches? Is it the skin around the eyes that moves? Is it the cheek muscles, the lips, the nostrils? Is it the color of our eyes?
I remember it as though his eyeballs talked. Not all the facial muscles, but the eyeballs themselves. And I’ve wondered what it is my brain is registering.
And then there’s the question of whether or not character shows in our eyes – if you can describe somebody’s personality by what you see there. And those smart people – the ones you can see are intelligent by what their faces look like – what are we seeing? What can you determine by these faces you see?
