Her Sorrow
Grayslake, IL
2021, Senior, Creative Writing
Her body was soft, supple. Across her expanse, she could be hardened, rising tall and grazing the cerulean silks that swathed gently around her. The emerald curves that constructed her serpentine body were far-reaching. If one looked closely, they would see that the faint hairs on her body were, in fact, timid roots of trees. All the signs of life were apparent on her body, yet it was devoid of true vivacity.
Her eyes were closed, her cheekbones strong and high, her lips large and grooved. Her hair billowed out underneath her, wrapping and intertwining around her nudeness. Yet, as she was serene in that eternal moment, she could not help but cry.
“Why are you crying?” Time asked her.
She dared not move, her lips slightly opened to allow her shallow exhale of life. “I do not know,” she said simply, her voice easing from her parted lips as smooth as molten mercury.
“It is okay,” Time told her.
“Is it?” she asked.
She sobbed silently, her body still and quiet in the tepid silks. She could not help the flinch that ripped from her body, guttural and raw. A new feeling began to encompass her, as a strange dampness broached her closed eyes. The dampness built, the thawed ice in her heart echoing across Time. Her eyes opened timidly, as the moisture escaped her lined eyelids, flowing freely down her visage.
The tears traveled, flowing down the gentle curve of her collarbone, down her arched breast, traveling in rivulets down her legs. The tears never stopped through their flow, constantly cycling from her eyes to the ends of her vast body. No part of her was untouched by the newly liberated sapphire life source that flowed freely from her eyes.
Time didn’t care to respond to her. Instead, he watched, with mildly contained fascination, as her tears rushed in flowing rivers and streams, pooling into lakes and oceans in the slope of her stomach and the tender pits of her flesh. He circled around her, watching as her tears began to source life on her emerald body. Trees grew from small roots to large and billowy figures reaching towards the heavens, foliage richening in its deep pine color. Arrays of grasses and flowers bloomed freely and openly, with mosses and lichens lining her tear streams.
Time heard it, or rather, sensed it. Turning his ancient eyes to her figure, he noticed them then: tiny specks of sentient creatures on her body. They came in many forms, as large beings with fur hides, as narrow and slim creatures with jutting appendages, all living off of her tears.
“Look!” Time shouted into the void.
It must have been eons of staring into the adjoining spread of eloquent figures sprawled in the heavens before she responded. She hummed, her eyes falling downward, seeking her familiar body. Time’s presence guided her eyes, and she let out a soft gasp staring at her children that loitered on her body.
“It’s beautiful. They’re beautiful,” she whispered.
Time gave her a crooked smile. He wanted to capture that fragile naivety and allow her to live unharmed forever. However, life was not that simple. He stared in her eyes, filled with adoration, as she doted on her children who lived and died atop her olive skin. Her clear eyes rolled upwards, and she pulsed with renewed life.
“They live off of your tears,” Time stated. She watched her beings with wonder. She understood that they cried, too. But their tears were not neutral nor mundane like hers. Instead, they were imbued with mortal sadness.
“Tears express sorrow,” she said after watching them for a while.
Time cocked his head. “Are you sad?”
Staring down at her creations, she did not know. She was not like them. She was ethereal, timeless, a manifestation of will. She cried while staring at their own tear-stained faces, but felt nothing.
“No,” she admitted truthfully.
Her eyelids half closed themselves, and she allowed herself a moment of rest. Opening her eyes to wakefulness a moment afterward, she could attest to strange and tangible sensations on her body. Lowering her gaze, she watched in awe as her children grew and expanded, building cities and landmarks that took on the form of beauty marks and moles.
She was pleased with her creation’s innovation, yet she winced and hissed under her breath as they expanded and plucked her hairs from her body to interweave in their structures. Most of all, her eyes watered even further when miasmic plumes were released from her children’s factories, clouding her vision. She could not deny the pain that she felt, the first time she has ever experienced pain in her divine existence. But, most of all, she wanted to provide for her children, to make them happy.
“How can I make them happy?” she asked Time.
Time hummed, inspecting her children. They all flourished upon the rivers of her tears, bathing in them, drinking from them, living off them. He came to a conclusion then.
“Cry more,” Time told her.
She laughed softly. “How?”
Time motioned down to her body, where certain children of hers tore into her curves with machinery fastened from her own tissue, trampled on her ethereal flesh, left her barren and empty, and profited from it all. Those children, with pointed teeth and empty eyes, did not hesitate in plundering her body in the name of their wants.
“Feel that,” he said solemnly.
Her lips parted in anticipation as she nodded. She would embrace the pain that her children inflicted upon her body as they grew from desiring her nourishment to taking and destroying anything she had to offer. Her children had grown greedy and tipped the scales of balance that she had delicately assembled for their comfort. Although she was not sad, she cried from the pain that her children inflicted upon her.
New streams of her fresh tears poured down her body, opening new passageways and new profits for her children. Her children merely smiled and continued on in their hushed lives. To them, the sun shone brighter, rivers ran clearer, animals and crops were bountiful. The corrupt and wicked children of hers who had evolved far past her influence smiled with jagged teeth at her flourishing life, intending to pillage what she offered even further. And so, they did.
New factories, bigger than before, polluted her tears. Her tears ran bloodied down her face, sediments and pollutants clouding the now murky water. Soon, her toxic tears filled every slope and ridge of her body. She couldn’t help but to continue crying. It was the only way she knew how to help her children.
“Are they happy?” she asked Time, trying to smile through her pain.
“No. No, they’re not,” Time frowned.
Her body shook with her sobs as she tried to help her children. Time looked on, worried, as the jagged contortions of her body clashed with her children. Her wails filled the void, the silk underneath her twisted and reflecting her suffering. Hurricanes seized up, taking her children’s lives and tearing their cities apart, while droughts carved permanent scars into her previously unblemished skin. She heard their screaming, a soreness resting in her molten heart. She paused her wailing, looking down in fear.
“Have I hurt them?”
Time sighed, his eyes downcast at the victims before him.
“No. They have hurt you,” he said truthfully. And so, Time took it within his own calloused palms to help her. With his ancient wisdom, he bestowed a gift upon her children: eutierria. Generations of her children grew up to young adults, knowing the joys of her tears. Witnessing previous generations who destroyed and ravaged her tears, they sought to do better. Her children, dressed in suits, fought for her rights, for her body. Perhaps the saddest part was they only had an inkling of her sacrifice, completely ignorant of the entirety of her agony.
Movements rose to tear the teeth from the beasts at the head of society who used her tears to fasten weapons and inflict pain upon her and upon her children. Time’s ninth eye opened, and he could see it then: a glorious, golden day in the future when she would no longer hurt. Her children would be able to live and enjoy the fruits of her labor in peace, all the while she could rest. Her tears, once vivid and explosive with life, would no longer run red and polluted against her viridescent figure. Perhaps her tears would run clear again, without the darkened stain of her children’s corruption and exploitation of her offerings. He glanced down with a watchful eye at the children who roamed her body freely.
“Without her pain, without her tears, you would be nothing.” He tried to hold back his sneer for the insincere and selfish who lived off of her, but caught his flare of temper at the kind and gentle who healed her wounds. Her wearied face had hardened over the years of abuse, and she struggled to smile at Time.
“Are they alright?”
Time nodded.
“They are.”
Reflection
Reflection
What inspired my work was a piece of art from a video game called World of Warcraft, where the inhabitants of a continent unknowingly lived on the back of a creature. The creature was so large and sentient that when war tore up its hide, it felt every bit of pain. Yet, the inhabitants never knew about the being nor its sacrifice. The feelings that writing this piece evoked from me was empathy and determination, as I felt “her” (the Earth) own pain through every word. My message is that humans have taken advantage of the Earth and its resources. Scientists have cried out for years about pollution and anthropogenic effects on the oceans and hydrological cycle as a whole to no avail. The only thing that actively protects the oceans and water cycle is time. Capitalism, which is a fundamental system in place in many countries in the world, is based on unlimited wants and infinite growth. This is the main flaw in capitalism: infinite growth is based on finite resources. However, as time goes on, people are becoming more and more environmentally conscientious. Time is, above all else, the true guiding hand that is a significant water protector. With time comes wisdom. As I grow older, I plan on educating as many people as possible and sharing this story. Many people don’t understand how their own impact can be exaggerated hundreds to thousands of times, so I think planting the idea of saving the ocean and the environment as a whole can evolve and grow as time helps by bestowing wisdom. Whether or not Theodore Roosevelt or Rachel Carson’s actions directly changed people’s views or otherwise had an impact on the environment, their writing and advocacy did plant a seed for time to nurture: a seed that holds respect towards the environment.