The narrator isn't sure how to take this. He tearfully implores the narrator to heed what Mary said, adding that he burned the floppy disk, and that it "hissed like an animal" as it burned. Later that month, Mary's husband contacts the narrator, telling him that Mary has committed suicide. She's writing this email to warn him off trying to research smile.jpg further, as she's worried he'll come across someone who has no problem showing him the image. However, at the last minute she realized that she was plotting to ruin an innocent man's life, and she couldn't go through with it. After all, he was a complete stranger, he'd pretty much been asking for it, and it was a way out for her that didn't involve potentially ruining the life of a loved one. Mary confesses that, at the time when the narrator first contacted her, she decided she was going to give him the floppy disk. It's the ones she never heard from or about again that worried her the most. Other users of the BBS board she used to be the sysop for stopped posting after their exposure to smile.jpg, and she heard that some of them had committed suicide. She knew what she had to do to cure herself of the nightmares, but resisted. Without even checking, she was certain of what was on it. Shortly after first seeing smile.jpg she received an envelope in the mail with no return address, and inside was a floppy disk. It tells her it'll leave her alone if only she "spreads the word," and she's certain it's referring to passing along smile.jpg to an unexposed person. It's not really a dog, she says, but she's unsure what it actually is. She explains that she's seen smile.dog in her dreams every night since viewing smile.jpg, and that the dog talks to her. Mary apologizes to the narrator for her behavior on the day of the interview. Finally, in March of '08, Mary sends him an email. He doesn't hear back from anybody, but as he's just started college he's got plenty else on his mind. Medication seems to help in some cases, but it's definitely not doing the trick for Mary, and she's probably not alone there.Īfter the unsuccessful interview with Mary, the narrator puts out feelers online hoping that someone else who's viewed the real smile.jpg will contact him. Disturbing nightmares involving smile.dog are also reported. Supposedly, those exposed to smile.jpg will subsequently experience regular epileptic fits, during which they again see the picture in their mind's eye. The dog's mouth is open as though it's grinning, and packed with straight, white, human-like teeth. To the left of the dog is an outstretched human hand, described as "beckoning" to the viewer. The picture shows a dim room, only illuminated by the camera flash, with some sort of dog-like entity (described as looking something like a Siberian Husky) sitting in front of the camera. Narrator describes smile.jpg to us, based on what he's heard about it. This isn't a huge surprise to him, given that Mary is obviously not the most mentally stable woman after her exposure to smile.jpg, and after about half an hour of trying to take notes he calls it a day, figuring maybe he can contact someone else who's seen the real thing. She's incoherent and crying, and all the narrator can glean is that she's refusing to speak to him because of nightmares she's been having. When the narrator arrives at Mary's house to interview her, she locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out, speaking to the narrator and her husband only through the locked door. These fake smile.jpgs crop up with regularity on places like /x/ and other horror- or paranormal-themed boards, but the real smile.jpg apparently only resurfaces occasionally, causing great psychological harm to all who view it before an admin or moderator manages to take it down. Smile.jpg depicts an entity generally referred to as "smile.dog" - apparently, viewing the photo in question triggers sudden onset temporal lobe epilepsy along with acute anxiety, which is how the narrator is certain that all the images he's seen online claiming to be smile.jpg are fakes. Back when he was a tenth grader, he heard smile.jpg being discussed online and quickly became intrigued. Unlike the others exposed to the image, an estimated 400 people at that time, Mary has spoken out over the years about her experience, which is how our narrator came to hear of her. in '07 wanting to hear more about an image known as "smile.jpg." Mary saw this image back in '92, when she was the sysop for one of her local bulletin board systems (BBS - if you weren't using the internet back then, or, like me, weren't born yet, you might not know the term). Our narrator is a college-age young man, an aspiring writer, who contacts a woman named Mary E.
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