Teardrops

Part One

The summer night breeze blows across your skin, wisping through your clothes, and bringing with it the scents and sounds of the sea. The breeze is warm and soothing when it arrives, then cool and longing when it departs, like the fading touch of a lover. Grains of sand shift beneath your bare feet as you walk the beach, but your dry skin prevents them from clinging to you.

The waves lap against the shoreline, reaching as far as the breeze will allow before retreating back into themselves, always reaching but never straying beyond their own limits.

The heavens are above, in all their midnight glory, untainted by the corruption of man below. The stars glimmer, fading in and out of your sight as the clouds drift through the sky.

Such a beautiful night. The world, without the sorrow of humanity plaguing its every moment, is a wondrous sight to behold; A sight you will soon wish had lasted but moments longer.

There, in the distance, beyond the golden shores and the rhythmic waves, lies your destination. It is a small village, unheard of by most. Despite the warm weather, the village is eerily quiet. The lights in windows all burned low, barely noticeable, as if they were trying to stay concealed. Perhaps, they were hiding from the horror that lurked beyond.

Dark doorsteps, closed shops, quiet allies and empty sidewalks are all you pass. But you continue on your way, the way to the far side. Off the main path, down the unworn dirt road, all the way to the orphanage; Your destination.

Disregard the dark village, wander through the big, empty orphanage and into the dim room. Find the little girl, the little girl with the feeling; The feeling she feels as if only she could feel.

She would tell you of the feeling, oh yes, but only if you stayed awhile. Yes, stay a little while, do not run out in fear, or you will always wonder what the feeling is that the little girl feels. Let the girl tell you all about her feeling that burdens her, the feeling that weighs her down.

Or you can go...

The little girl would understand. You have yet to give her any reason to hope that you might care for her feeling. And, in fact, she expected you to go anyways. She knows that you see her, the little girl in the dim room, surrounded by carnage, and gore. Why, oh why, should you have any reason to stay at all?

So run, run away from the little girl in her blood covered gown, away from the gory, dim room. Wandering back out from the big, empty orphanage, and away from the dark village, back to the shores where life seemed perfect and untaintable. Run, run away.

And yet, you stay.

The little girl lifts her gaze to meet yours, and she sighs. She sighs a sigh of one hundred lives lived on this awful earth. A sigh that is weary with the irreparable corruptions of the world. A sigh laden with guilt, with reluctance, and with resignation.

Resignation that, no matter how we might deem to control fate, fate will always control us. Her resignation is to the inevitable, a philosopher might say. Yet, with a sigh such as hers, you would expect the little girl's feeling to far outweigh the understanding of the greatest of philosophers.

“I suppose you’d like to know?” asks the little girl. Her voice: subtle and sweet, yet full of emotional death, seemingly floats through the air with every uttered syllable. A voice that would make the angels weep. Unbeknownst to you, the angels were already weeping, and their tears, as full of sorrow and bleakness as they were, were not for the dead; They were tears for the living.

You give her an inquisitive, desperate look, a look asking “How?” A look which carried the weight of a hundred and one questions, and none of them answerable by someone who had not been there.

Questions a person would only ask if they had noticed the unnatural darkness of the village, observed the emptiness of the big orphanage, and found the little girl in the dim room, covered in blood that was not her own, with her feeling; Her feeling she felt only she could feel.

The little girl appears conflicted with the scene around her. She looks up at you, and with a tone of reluctance says,

“I suppose you want to know why these people are dead, and I am not?”

Part Two

“Well, I suppose I’d best start from the beginning, because it's the only part that makes sense to me.” The little girl, now sitting cross legged before you, gestures to a small wooden chair, somehow still whole amidst the wreckage.

“You’d best sit.” She says, still in that soft and resigned tone. “It’s not a long story but offering you a seat seems polite.”

Your mind begins churning, wondering at all the unexplainable realities you see before you. This little girl, so grown up and so set in reality, seems to have lost the very nature of being a child. Imagination? Happiness? Innocence? You see none of them in the little girl before you, so young and yet seeming so weary of life.

You could leave and simply do what you came for and return to your life, yet the captivating demeanor of this little girl forces your knees to bend, and your body to rest on the blood-splattered chair.

The little girl speaks in a tone far too gentle for the setting, saying “Now, you're probably wondering who I am, but that's not important; Never was. I can try and explain all this, but I'm not sure I understand it myself.” She gestures with her arms to the bodies around her, seemingly unshaken by their lifeless faces, or by the stench of death.

You sit, tense. Ignoring the bodies littering the room, the rats feasting, and the reek of blood in the air, you focus your attention on the tired, little girl.

“I’m here because no one else used to come here, before today. It was where I liked to play, where no one would hit me or tell me what to do.” Says the little girl.

She adjusts her sitting position, extending her arms back to support herself as she slides her legs forward, pushing an arm out of her way. It is only now that you notice the mangled, twisted knee on her right leg.

You feel pity for the little girl, but it is quickly overshadowed by even more questions; Questions you simply must have the answers to, and questions that can seemingly only be answered by the little girl before you. After all, this was your destination.

“Oh, yes, I’m a cripple.” The little girl says as she notices the flash of pity across your face, “I think I was born this way, and that’s why my parents hated me. They’d tell me I was ‘cursed’, and useless, and only ever brought shame on my family. They were right, though, because all the villagers treated me that way, like the walking plague or something horrid. No one ever wanted me around."

The little girl’s eyes shimmer with a faint glow of contempt as she says this, her lips and brow pressing together to form a tense expression. Then, slowly, her facial muscles relax, returning to their indifferent form.

“But none of that matters anymore. They’re dead now. I wanted to run away, but she said that the only way to stop the pain was to destroy where it was coming from. I suppose that killing them was her way of showing me that she would do anything to keep me safe.”

Part Three

“I’m sure you’d like to know who she is.” The little girl puts forth a hollow chuckle, as if forcing it out. “I’m not sure, really. She talks to me, in my head, but nobody else can see her, I think.”

At this, the superstition in your mind begins to come alive. A quiet fear that was there since you saw the little girl in the room begins to build, ignoring rationality in favor of horror.

“Oh, don’t worry, she won’t hurt you. Not unless you hurt me.” At this, the guilt in the little girl’s eyes clouds over her pitiless, indifferent gaze, and for a brief moment you see that there is so much more to her than you wished to know... Yet all the same, there is so much more that you simply must know.

"Well then." says the little girl, drifting back to her soft and resigned tone. "There really isn't much to say, it's all just awful."

Knowing that it will not be possible to get relaxed in the current setting, you focus your gaze on the little girl, and prepare yourself to hear whatever horrible, most dreadful series of events led her to into this dark place, and into this dim room.

The little girl, with her soft, resigned, and hopeless voice, continues on after a reflective moment. She lowers her knees down from her chest and sits cross legged, slouching forward as she ponders her words.

"We really did get along well, even though I only heard her in my head. She was always honest, like a friend should be. If she didn't like something, she'd tell me to fix it."

The girl chuckles, a chuckle full of irony and contempt. A chuckle that makes an innocent person shiver, a murderer laugh, and a pacifist feel empathetic.

"I suppose that's why, when she didn't like the people who hurt me, she made me kill them all."

Here, the little girl pauses and takes a deep breath, seemingly on the verge of giving up her story all together. She looks up at you, she looks around the room, and she looks down at the blood covering her nightgown.

Then, with no pity in her voice, she says, "but, killing them was what she said would keep me safe."

Part Four

The little girl, lost in thoughts that are appearing to only now become her own, continues on.

"I wonder why she made me do it. Why she couldn't just go with me somewhere far away from all those mean people in the village. I asked her, once, after all this happened. She spoke to me, in my head."

A short laugh, followed by an ever so slight smile,

"She said, 'so they never hurt me again.' I thought it was a terribly odd thing to say, because she wanted me to kill them because they hurt me, and not her."

Another short laugh, hollow and full of contempt,

"Then again, we always did seem to have the same experiences. Even though I couldn't see her, it always felt like she was right there with me, in my head."

The little girl's words do nothing to ease your horror, only add to it. You begin to study the room, searching for an explanation of the deaths apart from what the little girl was saying. You see claw marks, thin and sharp, in the bodies, the wooden furniture and walls.

Then, you look down and notice the little girl's hands. Her small fingers, with even smaller nails on the end, were covered in gore, making them unnoticeable unless you were looking to make her guilty of it all. Horror, disgust, and contempt grip you. The more you look, the more you see evidence of her massacre all around the room.

The little girl notices your reaction, and she looks... Concerned? Compassionate? She sits there so peacefully. Blood on her gown, but not her own. Claw marks on the bodies, and gore beneath her nails. A pitiless, yet sorrowful look in her eyes.

And the longer you look into her eyes, you see that beneath the indifference, there is sorrow. A sorrow so deep and true, she felt only she could feel it.

Sorrow not for the dead, no, but for herself. Sorrow that no child should have to bear, not even an inkling of it. Sorrow that would drive a minstrel to drown in his tears; Sorrow that would make a priest confess his own sin; Sorrow, such pure sorrow, that would make the angels in all their glory, weep.

Sorrow, so deep and imbedded in the soul, that it could create a place of darkness in the heart of even the most innocent child. This was her feeling, and she bared it alone.

You sit there, heart panging, mind throbbing with the sudden burden of understanding. In this moment, you can do naught but simply sit, and listen. Sympathy is beyond you, but the empathy in your heart loathes to leave the little girl alone.

So, you stay a little while longer, and you listen.

Part Five

You look down at the little girl, still sitting cross legged on the bloody, gore covered floor. With her eyes downcast, she speaks with a voice of innocent confusion. Her own voice.

"I wonder where my friend went. She told me that if I killed them then they couldn't hurt me anymore, but then, after it all, she just left me alone in this room."

The little girl looks down at her hands, palms facing upwards, seemingly only now coming to grips with what she has done.

"But I don't think I miss her. She made killing them seem like such a good idea. She could have just run away with me."

As she speaks, the indifference in her voice becomes increasingly outweighed by the sorrow, and you notice confusion, too, begin to inflect her words.

All the pain of living, and all the loneliness in a world full of people, meld together to place a single feeling upon the heart of the little girl; A feeling of sorrow. Sorrow so deep that she was certain only she could ever feel it.

She looks up at you, and for the first moment since you arrived, the sorrow in her heart and mind spills forth, gushing like a river that has been beaten into submission for far too long, plunging forth from her broken heart in the form of a single, pure, hopeless teardrop.

It slips slowly down her cheek, not being held back by the dried blood and dirt but pressing forth into its newfound freedom. Leaving behind a path of a child's innocent youth, the tear falls; Polluted with blood, and death, and pain.

As it falls, so falls her hope.

The pure teardrop, formed by a heart of anguish and sorrow, gently wets the gore covering her palm. The pure, innocent tear, produced by a heart that was once sweet but is now bitter with pain, disperses on her palm and is consumed by blood and death.

The little girl looks down at her palm where the tear left its dying mark, and then ever so slowly, she lifts her gaze to meet yours.

Pain, anguish, and guilt all dance together behind her eyes, forming a chaotic mess of thought and emotion. Yet, looking past the blur and into the depths of her soul, you find only the weight of unquenchable sorrow.

Part Six

The little girl looks down at her hands once more, knowing deep in her heart that all this was her doing, and feeling guilty for every death.

No more tears fall down her face, for she knows there are not enough tears in her body to account for the anguish she feels in her heart. It ate at her.

"I... I don't understand." Says the little girl in her small voice, no longer indifferent to the world but altogether lost within it. "I don't know why I killed them, but I know that I wish I hadn't. I wish I had just run away." She raises up her eyes to meet yours, searching for an answer to the madness. Searching for a reason.

When her eyes meet yours, you are lost within them. In their depths is a plea, a silent calling into the night. A silent plea that breaks against the heavens louder than the beating of one thousand drums, that simply yet so profoundly demands to be heard. In her eyes, there is an unfathomable longing for an answer to the madness.

"Why?" She whispers, moving the breath from her lungs just enough to get out the sound.

You do not know why. You wish, more than anything, that you could tell her why. Why should this happen to her? Why should fate condemn her life in this way? Why should the death of others be on her hands? Why should she have to account for her actions against the wicked? Why, oh why, did she ever have to breathe the breath of life.

Why do you, oh you who never faltered in your task before, have to hesitate now. You, who have been walking the face of earth since the beginning of Hell, have to be the one to answer the plea of a lonely child.

Why do you, oh grim reaper, have a heart that the teardrop of this little girl can soften.

The little girl, with no further words left in her aching heart, and no tears left in her pleading eyes, lets out a sigh. She knows who you are. She knows why this room was your destination. Oh yes, she knows. She knows that her guilt has caught up to her, that she is finally going to be freed from reality and pay for her sins in Hell. She knows.

She lowers her head, closes her eyes, and accepts her fate. "I wish this all never happened. I know I did it, even though I don't know why. Oh, I just wish I had never even been born." She sighs another familiar sigh, a sigh full of guilt, weariness, and acceptance.

Whereas before she did not understand how she might be judged in death for her actions, she knew now you were the one to condemn her. And yet, you, the reaper, hesitated.

Part Seven

Oh, how you wished to tell her, how you wished to free her from the guilt of these miserable creature's deaths. You wanted to yell, to hold her, to cherish her heart and promise her that you were not here for her, but for them; The souls of the wicked, condemned to Hell for their sins against God and against her.

And yet, you could not.

The little girl looks up at you, hopeless, her heart and mind lost in resignation and sorrow, waiting for you to take her soul along with the others and thus proclaim her guilty to the heavens and the earth. She waited, and you hesitated.

You look down at the little girl in her blood covered night gown, the gore on her hands declaring her guilty to the world. And yet, you know in your own heart, that this will be the last you see of her for some time. You know, oh grim reaper, that her path does not end here, and that her soul is still her own.

Oh, how you wish you could tell her so.

Part Eight

You stand, and you turn away. You turn away from her plea, away from her anguish, and away from her sorrow. You collect the souls you came for, leaving hers. You go out, away from the little girl in the gore covered room, and out of the big, empty orphanage. You go out, past the dark village, following the dirt path that leads to the golden shoreline.

The breeze once again brushes against your body, and your feet shift the sands beneath you. The heavens above shine out bright, as the wisps of cloud continue to fly, and the sea waves lap gently against the shore.

You look out, past it all. Appreciating the beauty of the world as it appears in its virgin form, untainted by humanity. Then, you look within. Your heart, so carefree and pitiless before, now has a little feeling of its own, shared with you by the misfortune of the little girl. Yes, oh yes, her little feeling she felt only she could feel, she now has given to you: sorrow.

Thoughts of her, lost within herself, and the sorrow she so purely felt, rest on your mind. As you prepare to descend to Hell, carrying the souls of the wicked to their rightful judgement, you hesitate once more.

You hesitate, because you realize that this is the first time you, oh reaper, ever felt pity.

Pity, for the innocence of a child stripped away and left with nothing. Pity that the little girl, so weighed down by life and having seen the worst of it all, must continue on in this most dreadful, awful world for a while longer.

The sorrow, now wed to the pity, begins to soften a single part of your once indifferent heart. And, from that small part, comes an even smaller inkling of a feeling. Yet, this little inkling is enough to moisten your eyes, and produce a single, heartfelt teardrop.

A tear for the guilt-laden heart that the little girl carries in her chest, and for the deed that she must come to terms with. A tear shed for the sorrow she felt so purely, and that weighed on her soul. A tear shed, down the face of the grim reaper, for the lost hope that once belonged to the little girl.

As you descend to the underworld, that solemn and heartfelt tear begins to slide down your cheek, falling onto the back of your hand. The hand that has carried the weight of the souls of all the wicked since the beginning of Hell itself, now carries a weight it has yet to bear:

A teardrop, shed for the living.

12 / 29 / 2021

Hosea Jones