Silver Tears

A gold flash caught her eye, a spark of iridescent warmth within the rain that beat against the car. She tried to capture it, to see what it was, but the rain blurred her view and it disappeared, taking with it the last piece of optimism within her.

The doctor climbed out of the car first, moving to pull open her door and beckon her to join him.

Time was slipping through his hands.

Impatiently he guided her with a hand on her back, into the house. The door was unlocked, prepared for their arrival. He led her into a dim room, saturated chemicals immediately filling her nose. Religious paraphernalia decked the walls and candles flickered their flames in greeting from the splintered windowsill.

Propped up on the single bed was a young boy, a pale face as placid as the moon and fading eyes that watched her enter.

The boy’s mother wore a hopeful expression on her worn face, a desperate prayer on her lips. She was curled in the armchair beside the bed, her son’s hand clasped in hers.

The doctor placed the young woman in a seat on the other side of the bed, where she perched to reach for the boy’s spare hand. Upon meeting his gaze, her first thought was that his eyes were as grey as her mother’s had been.

With his cold fingers clasped in her shaky hands, she used the memories of her mother to rack up enough sobs to set her into an uncontrollable frenzy. Copious amounts of tears fell from her eyes, splashing onto the bed covers and leaving behind stains of glittery residue.

Always silver tears. Always waves of misery. Her mother had complained about the numerous bedspreads and baby clothes that had been destroyed by her crying, although she had blamed herself for having given her daughter the name Eirian in the first place - a Welsh name that signified silver.

Wearing the name that had been burdened with her mother’s regret, Eirian had bathed in her tears shamefully throughout her childhood.

It had been another child who had first shown her that she was special. Purposefully, he had pushed her off the playground and she had torn her knee on the hard ground. Surrounded by the merciless laughter of other children, she had bawled out of misery, silver tears rushing down her face as the children watched in fascination.

When her tears had mingled with the blood on her knee - like they were mingling with the cells of the boy’s sickness now - the gash had closed, not even leaving behind a scar.

Deep melancholia surged through her body as she remembered her mother’s reaction to her newfound gift. A series of tests and doctors’ offices flashed through her mind as her tears fell. Money – delivered lawfully and illegally – had shifted from strangers’ hands to her mother’s, but none of it had ever reached her own pockets.

Her body was weak with the memories of never-ending emotional spills, each one having caused her worry that she would grow incapable of withstanding any more requests for healing.

She had wanted to hang up when the doctor had first called her, paranoid that it had been another set-up by her mother. Fortunately, he had never mentioned her name, explaining that he had found her through a friend of a friend - a simple slip of her contact in a hasty arrangement for the greater good.

The child was at risk of deportation if he was to be admitted to a hospital.

Through her tears she looked up to ensure that her gift was working. Sure enough, colour had bloomed in his cheeks. The boy’s grey eyes had been replaced with elusive blue irises dancing around their pupils. Glorious eyes like that would have been worthy of her gift.

With wonder, the child blinked at his hand where the remnants of her tears still lay.

‘Beautiful! So very beautiful!’ the doctor cried, his hand on her shoulder as he stared in amazement.

The mother was euphoric as she embraced her healed son.

Unable to cease her own crying, despite the celebratory atmosphere in the room, Eirian slipped away from the bed, pushing past the doctor and his outstretched hand containing an envelope of crisp notes.

No money in the world was worth the miracle of a saved life – that is what she had decided to say to her mother before she had left, all those years ago.

To stabilize herself financially she had gone back on her words to sell vials of her tears to doctors across the world. The task had left her with an unending supply of money, none of which brought her any joy like it had for her mother.

She did not need to accept any more money. The boy’s health and his family’s regained blithe was payment enough.

Eirian could barely see through her silver hazed eyes as she ran from the house, the burden of pain still upon her.

Stumbling down the rain-swept streets, under the fluorescent windows and opaque streetlights, tears trickled down her silver-streaked face. Silver residue left imprints on the wet pavement.

Beautiful, she thought. It was so very beautiful to be so very sad.

Rain began to fall around her, causing spools of silver to collect in the drain running along the street. The intermingling of the rain and silver created a sparkly, watery effect. She wandered aimlessly down the deserted street, making incomprehensible sounds as she attempted to push away her tears.

The last thing she wanted to do was return home to her desolate apartment adorned with stainless appliances and reflective ornaments. She had been collecting silver pieces for most of her life and some of them were priceless - an ingeniously useless way to spend her wealth.

Silver was a famous anomaly and for a while even she had become drawn to its cunningly mystic charm. However, now she found it windowless and jaded. A treasure that had become worse for wear and strangely transparent.

Instead of silver, her last purchase had been of a curious ornament made of molten gold. The piece had been gracefully displayed against her wall-less apartment its remarkable beauty resplendent against the glittering of the city lights. Despite it being alien among the colorless silver of majority of her home, it held more value to her than anything else. Walking into her home and laying her eyes on its untarnished surface always managed to fill her with a sense of gaiety, a feeling that nothing else in her life ever made her feel.

Silver was an untenable virgin compared to the dusky, raw endlessness of gold – made non-existent and impossible in comparison.

When she had glimpsed the potential gold through the doctor’s car window that feeling of bliss had filled her, but its sudden disappearance had reminded her of her emptiness.

Sounds of chatter lifted her eyes to meet the couple exiting the felicity of a well-lit restaurant. The woman reached into her pocket to attain a cigarette while the man stood patiently, keeping under the veranda to stay out the rain.

As the woman lit her smoke, the man’s eyes fell to the puddles forming in the street. He moved forward to inspect it, risking the rain on his dinner jacket. The woman tutted at him. ‘Look here, Val,’ he said, pointing at the silver spools.

The woman, reluctant to wet her cigarette, peeped over the threshold of the shelter. ‘Hmm,’ she said, placing the cigarette between her lips. She drew it away, blowing out a veil of wispy smoke. ‘Dazzling,’ she said.

The man nodded, retrieving a napkin from his jacket to dab at the rain on his face. In his movements, his eyes caught sight of Eirian delayed on the pavement, waiting for the couple to pass.

He blinked several times, stepping back under the veranda and placing a cautious hand on his companion’s back. Startled, the woman followed his gaze, staring at the mysterious, crying woman less than a metre from them. ‘Kyle, I… I don’t believe it,’ she said, her eyes wide.

Despite his unease, she did not hesitate to move out into the rain to approach Eirian. Eirian swiped helplessly at the residue on her face, the tears falling into place again.

‘I don’t believe it, Kyle,’ Val said again when her companion came to her side, sacrificing his dry shoulders to protect her. ‘Her face is silver.’

‘No dear, her tears are silver. They’re spilling all down the street,’ he said watching a tear trail off Eirian’s chin onto the pavement below where it ran off into puddles. The silver winked at him, darting across the wet pavement like a shooting star in the sky.

‘Why are you crying, dear?’ Val asked, holding her cigarette under her cupped hand. She took a draw from it as she waited for a reply.

Eirian sobbed loudly, silver tears coating her throat. ‘The pain,’ she croaked. ‘Oh, it is so very beautiful to be so very sad,’ she said, the words echoing in their hollowness.

Val glanced at her companion suspiciously. ‘She’s mad, Kyle. So very mad,’ she whispered.

Kyle’s face reddened. ‘I would be mad too if my tears were metallic. It must hurt to cry. But it’s not nice to say, Val.’

Eirian felt another crestfallen wave crash over her, fed by the truth of the man’s words. Uncontrollably, she spluttered, shooting out sparks of silver before her face fell into her hands and her shoulders rocked.

Kyle drew his companion back, Val’s cigarette soaked with rain. They did not say a word more as they escaped down the street, shooting glances behind them as if they were uncertain if the sight behind them was just a product of their wine.

Eirian used her coat to soak up most of the tears, half-heartedly noting that she would need a new one now that another one of her garments was enameled with silver.

She moved on, careful to step over the abandoned cigarette and soggy ashes.

Anybody would be mad if they had to go to sleep every night with the promise of somber nightmares, or to wear the deplorable burden that weighed heavily on her shoulders, sharp and cheerless since birth.

Listlessly sulking past the window of the restaurant, she bared her shoulders to the rain. Her eyes were unfocused on the ground, but a glint caught her attention. A small shard of gold floated down with the raindrops, before settling on the ground in front of her. Crouching to examine, she noticed how it seemed to pulse rebelliously within the puddle of silver.

Frustrated with curiosity, she scanned the street to find another. Alas, the street stayed shadowed and dismal, bare of any splendid particles. She continued down her path, feeling miserable for having hoped at all.

Just as the thought settled in her mind, another gold fleck appeared, gliding around the corner of an empty building. Feeling a presence from the adjacent street, Eirian was drawn around the corner.

Up ahead, in the slowly easing rain, walked a man in the company of his own aura.

Although the night was dim, his body held a gold glow that emanated from his skin. On his face, he wore an effervescent smile which caused everlasting dimples in his cheeks.

It took her a moment to realise that her tears had ceased, her lips parting in a pleasant surprise.

He walked towards her, his eyes now meeting hers, his irises gilded in precious russet. He paused in front of her, endless and fair, before wiping away the residue from her face. With a careful inspection of his stained fingers, he gave an incandescent smile. He emitted a raw laugh that brightened the glow and sent out sparks of gold dust that curled up into the night air, creating potential.

Beautiful, she thought. How very beautiful it was to be so very happy.