This story will probably have several parts to it, in chapter form. Right now, I'm not sure how long  it will be, but here is chapter 1 so far.  Hope you enjoy!  

The Salt of the Earth
By La Llorona, ©2017

Chapter 1: Fiona

It was raining in Philadelphia.  Summer rain, late July, which meant that the humidity was worse than ever.  What was it, ninety degrees or something?  It had to be. Maybe even less, like eighty.  Even seventy-five was like a sauna in Philadelphia.

I swore under my breath as I struggled to close my umbrella.  The Ethical Society was right in front of me but I had to climb a few steps before I reached the door. I hated standing in front of a door fumbling with my umbrella.  I’d done that before and someone had opened the door unexpectedly.  I was so startled, I almost slipped and fell down the stairs.  The result was a loud, blood-curdling scream from my lips, and several people, including the one who’d opened the door, staring at me in horror.  Great, I’d thought.  Another panic attack!

I relived the mortification as I continued to struggle with my umbrella, which was now splashing water, tons of water, on my purse, and electronic cigarette vaporizer.  My breath came out in short gasps, and pretty soon I was hyperventilating.  Don’t scream, I told myself fiercely. Do NOT scream.  Please.

I sounded, to  myself,  like my best friend Tammy when she’d once witnessed one of my attacks.  She was not happy by my screaming and forget about the childlike crying I’d sometimes engage in.  I don’t know why I have these panic attacks, but I think a lot of it has to do with fear of death.  Or loss of control…whatever.

I finally got my umbrella closed, and collected myself as I carefully walked up the stairs.  I went into the Ethical society and frantically looked for a directory.  I found none.  I began to panic again, and realized I hadn’t written the room and floor number of the Meetup group I was going to.  Only the Ethical Society was in my mind.  I suppose I thought someone would be at the desk, or there’d be a directory. Who was I kidding?

I forced myself to calm down with an effort that hurt.  Something was telling me I HAD to go to this Meetup, no matter what.   Something, or someone was going to change my life completely if I kept on going.

I began to walk through the quiet halls and empty rooms.  No one and nothing was there.  I frantically pulled out my cell phone from my purse, and pressed the button that would light it up.  There, in bold numbers, was the time.  10:56 P.M.  Thank goodness, I thought. I wasn’t late!

It would be eleven o’clock in four minutes though, I thought, fighting down another panicky moment.

Suddenly, as if the Divine had intervened on my behalf, I saw a sign next to an open door.  It was a small, barely visible sign, on an orange index card.  The sign said, “Recreational Therapy Meetup: 11pm-Midnight.”

I sighed with relief. No one was in the room.  Good, I thought.  No one will get on my case for vaping in here—not until they show up at least! 

Philadelphia had cracked down hard on vaping as well as smoking in public places.  However, that didn’t stop me from sneaking the occasional puff here and there.  So long as no one was looking.

I found a couch that faced the window, and sat down with a heavy sigh.  I began the arduous task of taking my purse off from where it hung, crossed over my shoulder.  I am not a small woman, so this is not always easy.  My hips were already in pain from walking as it was.  I knew my doctor would get on my case for not losing the weight he told me to lose, since I’d been diagnosed as pre-diabetic.  Well, I thought, that’s one of the “punishments” of getting old, I guess. 

I picked up my electronic vaporizer and took a long, slow puff, and watched the water vapor cloud up around me as I sat there.  Yep, getting old sucks, I thought.  I had just turned fifty this year, and wasn’t taking well to aging at all.  Probably why I needed this group.  At least I was getting out of the house, I said to myself defiantly.

If I was truly honest though, what drew me to this group was the paragraph about crying in the introduction.

“In order to get to the deepest part of your hurts, you need to do a lot of crying.  Everyone who shares does so for a half an hour, no interruptions.  Sometimes we don’t even talk.  We just cry.  We also shout, pound the couches and throw chairs around the room.  Primal expression has been frowned on for far too long.  So, check your inhibitions at the door, and come join us as we peel away the layers of our public facades.  Don’t forget your tissue box.”

I had no tissue box, but in my purse were about five large-sized men’s handkerchiefs.  I opened the purse and looked at them, folded neatly and stacked in the large compartment. I began to feel that strange, familiar pleasure as my hand closed around one of them.  As soon as it happened, the fear and shame took over.  What was I, crying-obsessed?  Did I really want to heal from my hurts, or just sit and cry my eyes out for hours on end?

No.  I wanted to cry my eyes out for hours on end AND watch others do the same.  Whatever would validate me…I was there.

I could hear my mother’s voice, loud and clear, talking about my writings of fiction, some of which  I’d self-published and was still trying to sell online.

“You have people crying all the time!  Why do you have all these people crying?  It’s too much. Nobody wants to read that.”

Shame.  Hideous, unapologetic shame.  I knew why I needed therapy.  I needed to learn how to cry, and really embrace it with no shame.  I had the right...didn’t I?  After all, other people do it.  Why not me as well?

Sighing, I also realized that I still cried vicariously through others less ashamed to cry.  However, the feelings of strange, intense pleasure I always felt bothered me deeply.  Why did I feel that way?  Was it sick, I thought?  Was that rude to these people?  I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

It was then that a voice interrupted my thoughts.

A man had walked in, and was talking.   I turned around to see him, and realized he had his cell phone against his ear and was walking around, talking loudly into it.  Normally I hated that sort of thing, but I found myself listening with no desire to leave or shut out the sounds by playing music through my earbuds.  The man was clearly not happy, and I found myself concerned about him even though I had never met him before.

He had dark hair, slightly curly and wavy, and it moved around as he walked, like curtains in a breeze.   Streaks of gray ran through it; was he close to my age?  I found myself hoping for that, as he was very, very attractive.  He wore a blue denim jacket and jewelry hung from his neck.  His shirt was black underneath the jacket. His jeans were the same color, denim blue. His boots were light brown, made of suede, and his jeans were stuffed into them, giving them a wrinkled appearance.  Still more scarves hung off of his belt, and his head was wrapped in an orange bandana.  In his front jacket pocket, a red pocket square or handkerchief, stood out.  In another pocket, one closer to his hips, a white handkerchief peeked out.

His eyes, I saw, were piercing and dark as he turned in my direction.  His face was beautiful, ageless and timeless. He was slightly olive-skinned…perhaps Native American, maybe even some Irish in him.  Freezing inside, I dropped my eyes and turned around to face the window.

He continued his tirade however, as if he hadn’t noticed me.  I desperately hoped that he hadn’t.  I didn’t feel right listening in on his conversation, even though it was loud enough that anyone could hear.  Apparently, he either didn’t know anyone was in the room, or didn’t care.

“That’s not good enough, Laney!” he was shouting. “That’s not even near good enough, and you KNOW it!  WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME OUR DAUGHTER TRIED TO KILL HERSELF?”

Oh my God, I thought, feeling a chill run down my spine.  Did I hear correctly?  Did his wife, or whoever this “Laney” was, really keep such a thing from this man?  How, and more to the point, why?

“I don’t understand,” the man’s voice continued.  Suddenly I realized his voice was closer to me than before.  I looked around with a start, and there he was, sitting on an armchair barely two feet from the couch I sat on.

“I don’t understand,” he said again, and this time his voice caught a little. 

I thought about getting up and walking away but something held me pinioned. The man was staring out the window, his dark, intense eyes fixed on something outside.  There was no way he couldn’t know I was there.  However, he clearly didn't care, or mind, if I heard his conversation.

I settled back into my seat quietly, and averted my eyes, but relaxed my body in a way that would show him he was safe to vent in front of me.  I hoped I’d be able to comfort him a little, before the rest of the group walked in.

“Laney—why didn’t you tell me Rachel was depressed?  I have been trying to reach her for months but she never answers or returns my calls.”  His voice broke now. “Laney—are you telling her bad stuff about me again?  God…how many times can I apologize for leaving you?  I made a mistake, Laney, a bad mistake, and I know it.  I lied to you.  I slept with Jen behind your back and insisted we were just friends. I told you you were delusional for your suspicions, and a jealous control-freak. I’m so SORRY, Laney!  So sorry…”

I stole a glance at his face.  Tears were streaming out of one eye.  He sniffed, but still stared out the window, shaking his head. His face was the picture of pure heartbreak.

“I owned up to it,” he continued brokenly.  “I--I owned all of it!  The four of us talked about it, Laney!  You, Rachel, Z and me.  I thought we had finally crossed over.  Now…now that I’m out of Jen’s life, even now that I realized what a bitch she was?  I’m STILL ostracized.  Still cast aside.  The hospital told me neither Rachel nor you wanted me to know any information about her.”

Soft sobs made his body shake.  The man reached into the pocket containing the white handkerchief, and took it out.  He then shook it until it unfolded, and placed it over his streaming face..

“Oh, God,” he sighed, as the sobs became more pronounced.  “Oh!  I just—I just don’t know what to do, Laney.  I don’t know how to make it up to you guys.  God, Laney, you know how much I love our kids.  Z and Rachel are the greatest gifts of my whole life.  Laney…why?  Why is this happening?”

He collapsed into full-blown weeping now, clutching the handkerchief to his mouth and nose, as he did so.  His other hand, which was shaking, still held the phone to his ear.

As I sat there, trying not to make my attention on him obvious, I could hear Laney’s voice, a thin, officious-sounding voice, scolding him as if he were a small, errant child.  Quickly, the scolding became bullying as his sobs increased in volume.

“Oh.  Here we go, Zachary.  Crying.  Go on, make me feel like a piece of crap—again.  Go on, cry the blues, manipulate the situation like you always do!  God, Zach!  You are so self-absorbed, it makes me SICK!!”

“What a bitch!”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.  Mortified, I turned away.   The man called Zachary’s eyes were on me, I could feel them burning into my skin. God, I thought. What had I DONE?

To make matters worse, Laney made it perfectly clear that she had heard me.

“Who is THAT, Zachary?  Your latest conquest?  Oh, you’re just so concerned about our daughter, aren’t you?  You probably never even went to the hospital.  You stayed home and screwed your latest little HUSSY!”

“She’s not a hussy, and you can go to HELL!” 

Zachary threw the phone at the window.  It hit it, but didn’t break or crack the glass. Instead it fell to the floor, making a crashing sound of its own.

Zachary now dropped his face into his handkerchief and sobbed wildly and heartbrokenly into it.  He sobbed as if his whole world had shattered.  From the sounds of it, it definitely had.

Without thinking another thought, I got up, walked over to him and put my arms around his shoulders.  I leaned my head on his scarved head and stroked his hair soothingly.  Zachary didn’t pull away, or stiffen.  He simply melted into deeper weeping, as if knowing he could trust me not to judge him or accuse him of “manipulation.”

“It’s all right,” I said softly as he continued to weep, occasionally shaking out his handkerchief and repositioning it over his face.  “It’s all right.  My name is Fiona and I'm your friend if you need one.  It's all right.  I’m here for you.  I'm here.”

I didn’t know why I was doing this, or why I felt like I’d known this man for years.  He certainly responded to me as if we’d been friends forever.  Closing his hand over mine and squeezing it gently, Zachary nodded through his sobs, which were too powerful for him to talk over.  Gradually, his sobs became softer, low and dark, almost like a percussion or a heartbeat.

“I’m here for you, Zachary,” I said softly, feeling the emotion rise as my own eyes filled with tears.  “Just go ahead and cry.   I’m here.”

Meanwhile, my whole body tingled with pleasure, and I felt a strong force as if a light were going up my spine, and out of my forehead.  I prayed that Zachary wouldn’t pick up on that.  I had never had THAT strong a reaction before.

Why did I react this way to tears?  They were the most natural thing in the world.   What was wrong with me anyway?

As if Zachary heard my thoughts, he said the very words I needed to hear.

“Thank God,” he said brokenly.  “You don’t know how it feels to finally meet someone who loves crying as much as I do.”

He laughed through his tears, and I came around and sat on the couch, near him.

“Crying is the best medicine sometimes,” I said.  “I never look down on a person who cries. That to me is just…counterproductive. Not to mention cruel!”

“You’re an empath like me,” said Zachary. “We empaths need to help others, but in order to do that, we have to help ourselves.  Me, I love it when a person cries.  I feel honored when women, and even men, let themselves cry in front of me.  That’s ultimate trust, you know.”

“Thank you, Zachary,” I said, heartfelt, putting out my hand to take his in mine. It was then that my own tears came, and I hung my head as my face began to twist in that familiar grimace.

“No you don’t,” Zachary laughed heartily.  “Come on, show me your cry face.”

I laughed through my tears, and lifted my face to his. Not knowing that I’d taken out my handkerchief, I blotted my nose with it.

“Good girl,” Zachary said, but his voice was filled with love, not the condescension I had once gotten from an ex-boyfriend I’d had.  Zachary’s deep, dark eyes were filled with compassion and, I was shocked to see, love. 

“Cry,” he said softly. “Just go on and cry, Fiona.  No one else seems to be coming, anyway.”

So I did.  I shook out the handkerchief and sighed…then lifted it to my face.  As I wept into it, the feeling came again, that powerful force that went up my spine and out of my forehead. The pleasure became more and more intense as I hugged the soft cloth to my face and reveled in its comforting touch, while it soaked up my tears.

Zachary got up, walked over to the couch and sat next to me.  Moving my purse gently to his other side, he took me in his arms and just rocked, and rocked me.  I wept as I had never wept before…in front of someone.  A stranger…but then again, not so much.  It felt wonderful.  It was like nothing I’d experienced...ever.

Understanding came to me then, as the tears and sobs just flowed.  There was nothing wrong with me.  I experienced pleasure while weeping and witnessing tears—because it was a release.  Plain and simple.  A beautiful release that for too long, I’d felt too inhibited to allow.

And this…this feeling of pleasure was intensified by the fact that I'd always looked for a place of not only comfort, but of love.  In this moment now, as I felt Zachary's arms around me rocking me as I sobbed my heart out, I realized something.  Not only had I found a friend and kindred spirit…I had fallen in love. Deep, passionate love, the like of which I had never known.  Never mind that I’d only just met this man. It was as if we’d known each other forever, and were coming home to each other.  Coming home…to pure, raw, feeling and true love.

“Don’t stop until you’re ready,” Zachary was saying into my ear.  “Don’t stop, my love. There are no time limits, and no rules.  There never will be with me.  Never.  Do you hear?”

I nodded, and squeezed one of his hands.  I wanted to say thanks, but the sobs were too intense to talk over.

I don’t know how long we sat together like that, or when it happened.  But sooner or later, my catharsis ended up in a kiss.  Then…the rest was heaven.  Somehow, and it seemed that Zachary shared my thoughts--I knew it would never stop there with one night.  It had only begun.  Heaven had only begun.

Heaven on Earth—the Salt of the Earth.
 

Last edited by La Llorona (April 28, 2017 3:24 am)