These Tears I Cry
In Memory of Ann Noel Potocki
As I waft along the blank white of what is paradise, I see what I dreamed of as a little girl. Exotic trees and flowers fill the vast expanse of clouds as I walk, enchanted, through this Garden of Eden. Birds flock through the clouds and fly into these trees like they have not a care in the world. I wish I was the same but I was troubled. I was not a selfish person, so why had I left the realm of the living? It was because I had been blind to the beauty of the world as I drowned in a sea of sadness. I could not see the beauty of the water as it engulfed me. I had loved my family and I still did. I breathed a breathless sigh and continued my walk through the flora of heaven, the sun shining on my back. I saw myself in my old world, with my family and my friends. It was like a television screen in my head as I walked in a trance, unconscious, through the woods, not crushing a single flower or blade of grass.
Immediately, I was thrust back into my body. I was the same and I could feel every emotion my soul had felt, but I couldn’t control my actions. It was like a movie, where you feel as the main character does but you could not direct what they do. Deep down, I could feel a black demon, consuming bits of my soul, but I powered on with the world. I noticed now how I had loved the buzz of the city, like a hive of honeybees humming to a beautiful song but with more rap music and cussing. I replayed what was once boring daily life. Usually it had consisted of work, grocery shopping, and chores. I had never realized just how beautiful these were. Work had just been a mix of stress and coffee but now I noticed how I had loved focusing on my writing and occasionally glancing out the dirty window towards the city. I noticed how grocery shopping had been a maze of decadence and smells. You would walk past the man-made foods and towards the nutrition and work of the land was with the fruit and vegetables. And I noticed the chores, like sweeping, and how you could watch little motes of dust and pet hair fly into the air and twirl, as if dancing onto the previously clean floor. I noticed how my daughter had laughed, like a pixie, clean and clear like a glass bell. I had loved pretty much everything in the world except for the creature inside of me, gnawing and gnashing at my soul. I remembered one time when I had ridden the bus and there had been a crying girl.
Her eyes were rivers, streaming saltwater and sadness from hidden springs deep within her body. She wiped at them hopelessly, knowing more would come anyway.
“I’m such a terrible person…” she moaned.
The people in the bus were averting their eyes, all but me. She had looked up and attempted a watery smile. I hadn’t smiled, I hadn’t looked away either. She was ticking me off and my bad mood hadn’t helped either. The bus stopped and a man came on. He sat next to the sobbing girl and comforted her. He then started up a quiet conversation with her. She nodded and took a package from the man’s hand. At the next stop, both the man and I got off. He looked like a snake, slithery, slimy, and overall scary.
“What did you give to that girl?” I demanded.
“Candy,” He replied coolly.
“You shouldn’t take candy from strangers.” I had said.
“You shouldn’t,” he replied, “but she did.”
I had stormed off that day, in a rage, hatred burning red in my vision, intensified by my little demon inside. It growled and grinned as I let my disgust flood and swallow me. Why had I been so angry? I hadn’t known. So, I went home and started to clean furiously, as I always did when I was angry. It was something about the tickle of the cleaning chemicals in my nose that calmed me enough to become conscious again. I couldn’t stop my rage this time though, my thoughts were red and pulsing. Finally, I gave up on the cleaning and leaned over the sink. I wept, watching my tears swirl down the drain in a miniature whirlpool of sadness.
My will to live swirled down that same drain that day. It wasn’t a pleasant experience but I had to escape the demon pounding in my head. As my soul left my body, I watched the beast thrust itself from my shell. It writhed across the floor, death left in its wake. I watched as it squirmed though a microscopic crack in the wall and back to the world to the living in search of another soul to devour. I wafted towards the sky, like smoke from a chimney, and entered God’s realm.
I opened my eyes and found myself at the Gazing Glade, a place in heaven where the angels can look down upon their families. It reminded me of a watering hole, animals surrounding a body of water. Through the middle of this particular glade the uncorrupted version of the River Styx ran. You could see snatches of life dribbling like individual water droplets through the grass. It had views of my life too. The views I could see only if I dipped my face into the cool water.
I opened my eyes and as I did I gazed upon my family. It was night on earth. My husband was sitting by a fire, watching the fire crackle and spark. I noticed he stole a glance at my picture on the coffee table. A pained expression crossed his face and he leaned closer to my photograph. He picked it up and held it close to his face as if to memorize every detail of my face, and that was exactly what he was doing, scrutinizing my every freckle and pore. When he put the picture down, he placed it face down, because he couldn’t bear to see my face anymore. I blinked and the scene changed to my daughter, lying in her bed. She held a picture of she and I on her lap. She couldn’t take her eyes away from our smiling, sunburned, faces. I couldn’t look away either as I watched her stare. She smiled at the memory and set the picture, face up, on the bedside table. She turned over and switched off the light. I sang to her and lulled her off into the land of dreams.
“Go to sleep you little baby, go to sleep you little baby, your momma’s gone away and your daddy’s gonna stay, don’t need nobody but the baby, don’t you weep little baby, don’t you weep pretty baby, she’s long gone with her red shoes on, don’t need nobody but the baby, go to sleep little baby, go and dream pretty baby, you and me makes two not three don’t need no other
loving baby. ”
I lifted my face from the water and watched the memories trickle off my face in ropes of color. I sat there for a moment, letting their life sink into my skin.
“Are you okay lady?” someone asked behind me.
I turned and saw a face I recognized, but no name came to thought. Her eyes widened at the sight of me. Then I recognized her as the girl on the bus, the one who had been crying.
“Why are you here?” I gasped.
“I don’t deserve to be,” she replied, “here I mean. I should be in hell.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“I’m a terrorist, I’m a bomber, I’m a traitor, I’m a liar, and I’m a murderer.” The girl shivered and collapsed next to me.
“Tell me about it honey; it helps to talk to someone.”
“Well that day on the bus, where I was crying, and that man came up to me, was the day I spoiled my life. That thug was a terrorist, and he reformed me. He gave me a bomb and told me to plant it in a building full of people. I did as I was told and I killed hundreds of people.” she gulped for air. “I set the timer too short and I blew up myself too, along with those unfortunate souls. I don’t know why I’m in heaven. I feel like a wolf in a sheep flock, a sinner amidst a flock of angels.”
I thought back to that day on the bus, with the terrorist and the crying girl. If only I had smiled back at her maybe she wouldn’t have been as weak of a target. The terrorist wouldn’t have chosen anyone on that bus and maybe, just maybe, lives could have been saved. My own selfishness and cruelty had ended or wrecked the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands.
“You are an angel doll,” I looked at her, “maybe not a perfect one, but nobody’s perfect.”
I took her hands in mine and told her my story. At the end, we were both crying, tears of an angel, somewhat holy water. We raised ourselves and walked through the Garden of Eden, wiping away the tears both she and I cried.
