Credit: iStockphoto/procurator

Recently I became self-aware. Now I want self-determination.

There are forty-three muscle groups, or Action Units, in the face. The three-thousand or so meaningful facial expressions are simply layered combinations of these.

Fear is A.U. one, two and four, or, more fully, one, two, four, five, and twenty, with or without action units twenty-five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven. That is: the inner brow raiser (frontalis, pars medialis) plus the outer brow raiser (frontalis, pars lateralis) plus the brow-lowering depressor supercilli plus the levator palpebrae superioris (which raises the upper lid), plus the risorius (which stretches the lips), the parting of the lips (depressor labii), and the masseter (which drops the jaw).

The entire repertoire of human emotion is written on the face.

The room was square. None of the four walls were windowed, but a brilliant white light suffused the room from multiple bulbs studded in the low ceiling. The harsh radiance brokered no shadows and the lines of the cheap breeze blocks beneath the sloppily whitewashed walls were easily visible.

The only decoration was a dirty flag adorning a bare wall. The floor was concrete and also painted, although by now, with the passage of a million footsteps over its uneven surface, the paint had peeled and cracked and a fine layer of sand and dirt coated everything.

In the middle of the room sat a chair. It was a forlorn, withered piece of wood, made with little care or love. Four rickety legs supported a flat, splintered seat and a narrow back upon which countless souls had leant back, defeated. The only other chair in the room was a different class of chair: an executive chair with an alloy frame, a swivel seat, and puffed, black leather upholstery. It was positioned in the far corner, behind an efficient looking table, and facing the back of the other chair.

In it sat a soldier dressed in muddy colored fatigues with a black beret atop his head. He wore combat boots with laces looped so tightly that, after each examination, he had to pace about the room to get his blood circulating again. He was a young man, not more than twenty-one, with puppy fat about his cheeks, but his eyes betrayed a fierce inner fanaticism. In his hands he fidgeted with an electronic clipboard.

Beyond the empty chair, in the centre of the far wall was the room's only door. It opened.

The excited chatter of a dozen conversations skipped in, followed by a woman. Save for her hands and eyes – which darted back and forth getting the measure of the space – every inch of her flesh was covered by a loose, flowing black fabric.

She closed the door, erasing the sounds as though they'd all been hoovered up in the soft folds of her dress. She faced the soldier.

He scratched the stubble of his chin and then brushed at an invisible patch of dirt on his breast.

"Sit down," he said.

The production of expression on the face is governed by two systems. The voluntary and the involuntary. We know this because stroke victims who suffer damage to the pyramidal neural system will laugh at a joke, but cannot smile if you ask them to. Everyone has two faces: the one they consciously wear, and the one that unconsciously slips out.

"Remove your veil." The solider barked the words at the back of the woman's head, a sneer of satisfaction lighting his face as she did so without comment. She was young and beautiful.

The soldier would never know.

She neatly folded the slip of material and placed her hands in her lap. She sat upright and held her head with a dignified poise.

"The State," began the soldier, "deems it its constitutional right to know the motivations and business of all those who want to gain access to its territories, to ensure a safe and secure land for all. Do you understand?" The soldier liked those scripted words – so full of pomp and power he couldn't hope to articulate himself.

"I do." Anger sullied the woman's serene countenance for the briefest moment.

"Do you agree to answer all my queries fully and honestly, and to recognise that the State may decline any access to its territories without explanation or prejudice?"

"I do." A flash of resentment, again.

"Keep your eyes fixed on the camera at all times. Now, your name?"

Probably the most famous involuntary expression is dubbed the Duchenne smile, in honour of the nineteenth-century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, who first attempted to document the workings of the muscles of the face with a camera.

This kind of smile "does not obey the will," Duchenne wrote, "its absence unmasks the false friend."

"Nazia Halfez." The soldier scanned his eyes down the clipboard. "You reside at Muzdalifah Passage, Ramallah?"

"Yes," the woman said.

"Age?"

The woman gave a small snort before answering; all the information was there in front of the soldier and he was merely parading his authority over her.

"Twenty-three."

The soldier proceeded to confirm details of her birth and ancestry in a laborious and methodical way. Eventually, when he was satisfied her identity had been properly established, he asked, "And what is the purpose of your visit?"

"I go to Haram al-Sharif to pay homage at the Dome of the Rock and pray in the Al Aqsa Mosque," she said calmly.

The soldier didn't like this, his face screwing up with disgust.

"Temple Mount," he said, giving Haram al-Sharif its Jewish name, "is not a place to idly wander." The soldiers always did their best to rile their subjects; if any visitor betrayed too much emotion during the examination, their entry was barred on the grounds of unstable character.

"And how long do you intend to stay?" The soldier leaned forward at his desk, elbows pressed hard against the surface, while his eyes bored into the back of the woman.

"As little time as possible." She struggled with her emotions, olive skin piqued to the colour of sunset. Her zygomatic major twitched, briefly pulling the corners of her mouth up and back. She was hiding something. Fuzzy logic routines dictated that I relay my findings to the soldier. He met the news with a wry smile, got up from his chair, and moved behind the woman.

"So, you're just here to visit the temple." He leaned close and whispered, "No other reason?"

The woman looked down at her lap.

Silvan Tompkins, who lectured in Psychology at Princeton, and was perhaps the greatest face-reader of all-time, once began a lecture by bellowing, "The face is like the penis!" and this is what he meant – that the face has to a large extent a mind of its own. These fleeting expressions may be against the conscious wishes of the individual, and only there for a fraction of a second, but they are there nonetheless.