Tears Bring Life

TEARS GIVE LIFE

Crystal shivered and pulled at the ragged edge of her worn quilt. The ground was just as hard and unforgiving as usual but the air that morning crept in with an unusually uncomfortable chill. The morning breeze had the distinct scent of the promise of rain. Crystal could hear the clanking of the others in the camp hurriedly putting out whatever belongings they had left that were capable of catching some rain water. She groaned quietly under her breath. Her bones hurt. She was only thirty years old but sleeping on the ground for the last few years had taken its toll. She did not relish the thought of moving from the little indention in the earth she had wiggled her way into during the night. She was finally comfortable. Well, as comfortable as she could be in a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. Crystal and her mother were actually among the fortunate few the other refugees had voted to allow to live in a small cave the group had discovered. She shifted a bit and tugged at her quilt, then decided she’d better get up and put out their few cups and pots or she and her mother would run out of water again. Crystal stretched out her hand to rouse her mother and let her know she was going to set out the dishes. Touching her softly, Crystal whispered, “Momma, it smells like rain. I’m going to set out the cups.” Her mother did not respond… not even with the typical annoyed grunt. Crystal shook her mother’s shoulder gently, “Momma.” Her mother still did not respond. She did not move. “Momma!” Crystal shouted, seizing her mother by the shoulders. She was cold. She was gone. Crystal pulled her mother’s lifeless body toward her and nuzzled her face in the thinning silver hair of her mother’s head. Crystal rocked back and forth clutching her mother close to her and cried for a moment. Looking down she noticed her mother’s hand in its predictably clenched fist. Gently prying her mother’s fingers open she saw for the first time in a very long time her mother’s prize possession. Clutched in her unrelenting little fist it had remained for at least ten years. No one was allowed to touch it, no one was allowed to even see it for fear it might be taken from her or lost. So, there it finally was laying defenseless… without its unremitting protector. The heart-shaped locket.

Crystal sighed deeply. She gingerly removed the locket from her mother’s palm and laid her mother back down on the ground beside her. Crystal shoved the locket in the pocket of her filthy jeans and then laid her mother’s arms across her chest and covered her with the quilt. She sat silently staring at the cave wall for a moment. The others allowed to live in the cave had already rushed outside to set up water collecting receptacles. Crystal could hear them rustling about outside and speaking to the other refugees who were busily doing the same. Shaking herself from her thoughts she moved to gather the pots and cups she and her mother had shared and began clumsily loading them into her dirty t-shirt. Her mother’s death was hardly a shock, not even a surprise. In fact, it was almost a welcome relief for both her and her mother. Her mother had never recovered from her father’s death. After her father died her mother had not spoken much at all. Then when the ruling party rounded up all the “decenters” and literally removed them from their homes by force her mother just clenched her tiny fists and began mumbling crazy things… “He told me so…” “I’m so stupid…” “Tears bring life…”… and then she would cry. With the cups and pots scooped together in her shirt Crystal quietly stepped out of the cave and moved off to set her dishes on a flat stone where they wouldn’t be disturbed if they were lucky enough to receive some rain. Her water collecting receptacles in place, Crystal knew her first order of business was to tell Jada. Avoiding a few small clusters of congregated refugees, Crystal made her way to the scrubby little patch of mesquite trees Jada had chosen for her campsite. Crystal and her mother had been afforded one of the covered areas of the refugee camp because of Crystal’s mother’s health. Jada, for some reason, was the only person in the group Crystal’s mother would allow anywhere near her aside from Crystal herself. Crystal didn’t understand why, Jada didn’t understand why. It just was what it was and Jada didn’t shrink from the responsibility. Perhaps it was something Crystal’s mother sensed in Jada and Jada had proven that the diminutive silver haired mute was an impeccable judge of character. Crystal quietly stepped up behind Jada as she knelt in front of a tiny fire, boiling a bit of water in a pot. Jada heard Crystal approach and smiling to herself spoke aloud without turning, “What’s up my friend?” Crystal bowed her head and walked around to the opposite side of the fire where she could see Jada’s face. She stood quietly for a moment watching Jada tend the fire. She thought about how many times Jada had sacrificed some of her own water to give Crystal’s mother at least a cloth-bath… how many times Jada had tried to wrestle that locket from her mother’s grasp just so she could clean her a bit. “NO!” Crystal’s mother would wail loudly. “Tears give life!” Jada would always relent and wash everywhere else Crystal’s mother would allow her to… no one else. Just Jada. “Not much.” Crystal finally said. “Here, catch.” Jada looked up just in time to see Crystal toss something to her. She caught it instinctively and then looked down into her open palm. “What’s this?” She looked up at Crystal inquisitively. Crystal smiled sadly, “She won’t fight you for it anymore.”

Jada looked back down at the heart-shaped locket in her hand and just stared for a moment. Slowly she looked up at Crystal, her dark brown eyes brimming with tears. “This?” Crystal sat down on the ground heavily across from Jada, “Yes, that!” Jada shook her head in wonder, “It’s just kind of a weird piece of rock.” She turned the locket over and over in her hand. “Hm. This is what she’s been fighting me over the last three years? Do you know what it is?” Crystal shook her head, “Vaguely. I know my father gave it to my mother before he left on his last overseas flight. I know it’s somehow associated with his hometown. I know he warned my mother that incredibly, stupidly, unbelievable things were about to happen.” Jada rubbed the locket against her jeans and examined it again, “It really looks like some kind of granite or something. Its groovy the way the two pieces are kind of etched together like a puzzle.” Crystal shifted, “I guess. Stupid locket. It drove her crazy!” Jada looked up in shock, but recovered quickly. She plunged a few pieces of clothing into the little bit of water in her pot with a stick, “It’s the last thing she had. If it meant enough to driver her crazy, you and I both owe her enough to find out why.” Crystal shook her head, “What’s the use. First of all, the only thing my mother ever associated that locket with was the fountain in the square of my father’s hometown which is miles from here. That fact in mind, we could never make it there without the “Party” picking us up for violating boundaries. What’s the point? Why?” Jada thoughtfully stirred her pot. “You know, I loved your mom. I can’t say I really knew her having never had a real conversation with her. We communicated in lots of ways though. I’m willing to believe that she knew something about that locket that we don’t. I think we owe it to your mother to check it out. Besides, I’ve got all clean skivvies. Which way is daddy’s hometown?”

Crystal spoke to the elected leaders of the refugee group, made her mother’s arrangements and packed up her few belongings. She made her way to Jada’s little mesquite cluster and called out, “Ready for a road trip?” Jada immediately popped out of her little make-shift hut almost knocking it over. “Captain, my captain!” She yelled, saluting Crystal. Crystal stifled a laugh, “What in the fresh Hell is this?” Jada stood before her with a backpack, an assortment of skillets, at least three canteens, and six handmade animal-skin water carriers strapped to her tiny, muscular frame. “What?” She said, “A girl-scout is always prepared.” They locked eyes and took off to the West. They traveled and sought out possible sources of water only by night, taking what little sleep they could during the day. Water was scarce as usual, the “Party” having cut off access to anyone outside the “socialized zones”. Crystal crept close to the edge of a pond to try and fill a canteen one night only to be spotlighted back into hiding. “Damnit!” She cursed under her breath, “Who freakin’ died and made them the water sheriff of the world?” Jada responded all too quickly, “Uhm, the dudes with enough money to buy more guns and bigger masses of mindless minion.” Crystal just grunted agreement and they moved forward. Off in the distance they spied a small abandoned town. In the center of the square stood a fountain. In the center of the fountain stood the statue of an angel. Under cover of darkness Crystal and Jada crept to the fountain in the middle of Crystal’s father’s hometown. Crystal knelt by the fountain. Jada explored every inch. “Give me the locket!” Jada cried from behind the granite statue. “What?” Why?” Crystal called. “Give it! Just give it!” Jada’s hand waved from behind the stone angel. Crystal drew the heart-shaped locket from her pocket and tossed it into Jada’s waiting hand. Jada, having already cleared the debris from the back of the statue affixed the heart-shaped locket between the shoulder blades of the stone angel. Clear, clean, glistening water began to flow from the eyes of the angel and Crystal could hear Jada’s elated cries as she came dancing from behind the stone statue. Jada plunged one canteen and animal skin after another into the fountain, “She told you so, she told you so! Tears give life!”