Ralph chalked it up to a curse. For the thirty-seven year old attorney, that was a big deal. Ralph didn’t believe in anything supernatural. Growing up, little Ralph went so far as to call his parents’ bluff about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause. The boy was a natural naturalist. There wasn’t anything that couldn’t be explained with the use of the sciences, and that sort of thought life took Ralph very far in his career path and personal development. Of course, the man was questioning all of it after he kissed the shrunken head of a cursed witch doctor. Yeah, you read that right. He was drunk. The whole office went to Jamaica on a team building vacation. He had too much too fast. It was nice to get away from the workload. Too nice. The witch doctor had a bit too much to drink too, Ralph supposed. Why else would he willingly let a tourist pour a shot of rum down the hatch of his mother’s shrunken head? He wouldn’t. Plain as that. It was all fun and games. Hell, even Karen from accounting was living it up and dancing… well… sort of dancing… with the locals. Then Ralph kissed the damned thing. He couldn’t remember the words that the witch doctor spat, and, honestly, they weren’t likely in any language of man. But whatever horrible things the guy said were nothing when compared to that old, shriveled head puckering its dry lips and giving Ralph a cheeky little wink. Everyone told him he was crazy. That he’d just had loads to drink and was making it up. But Ralph wasn’t that sort of drinker. That head came alive, and he knew it. It had cursed the man. He waited to see what the curse might be for a few days, and hadn’t had any symptoms. Then the day to fly back home came about. The man hardly made it into the airport without having people around him look at him as if he were some sort of madman. Women looked annoyed, men looked confused, children seemed distressed by his appearance. Then it hit him: he was making kissy faces and winking at every passerby. Ralph couldn’t stop. It was like a tick. His eyes and lips betrayed him each time he made eye contact with another person. The man tried to stay logical and comfort himself by downplaying the severity of the rather appropriate, but nonetheless odd curse by adapting to a life without eye contact. Then Ralph made it to TSA, soon realizing his poor decision had ensured that his life would never be the same.