By Philip Malazarte
What if crying isn't a result of evolution? What if it started with one person? Who was that one person?
Long ago, thousands of years in our past, there was a young girl, who could cry. Now, you must remember that this is a time long before modern humanity, and people were...different. To be frank, people didn’t cry. Ever. Even as babies. They simply did not possess the means to. To be sure, they felt the things that we most often associate with the need to cry. Anger, grief, joy. And yet they did not cry. Instead, they simply released a horrible, unearthly sound from deep within their chest. A wailing, if you will. But this is unlike any wailing you have ever heard of. This sound rushes through you like a cold wind, like a red hot dagger raking it’s jagged edge across your body, and it tears your heart to shreds. It is sadness, raw and agonizing. But one day, a girl was born. And when the wet nurse held her up so her mother could see her, the entire room bore witness to the clear liquid streaming down her face. This girl, she could not wail. She was unlike any other person at the time. However, she could cry, and this made her the subject of many taunts and jeers. Because she never stopped crying. From the day she was born, she kept crying. Every minute of every day, she would cry. Her eyes never dried, her throat never became sore. And she hated it. She hated those who shunned her, she hated people who used to beat her when she wouldn’t stop crying, and most of all she hated herself. She hated looking at her reflection, so she destroyed anything that could serve as a mirror. She lived alone, in a cave high atop the tallest mountain, so all could hear her sobs or rage and lament. But this girl was a witch, and ass the years passed, this hateful girl grew into a hateful woman, and when the rage tore itself apart, it was replaced by cool, ruthless determination. The woman decided that everyone should feel her pain. Everyone should experience this, this helplessness. And so she cast a spell, a spell that took whatever was inside her that made her cry constantly, and spread it around the world, to all those who ridiculed and spit on her. Her tears stopped, and for a second, she was astonished and relieved. They had finally, finally stopped! Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she dropped to the floor, stone dead. The spell had taken too much from her, and though she did escape the constant company of her tears, it seems it was not the way she expected. Now everyone cries, and no one knows about the woman who started it all. The Weeping Witch.