Whose Tears?

“Why are you crying?” the little girl asked innocently. The large door shut in her tiny face, although she didn’t even flinch and carried on as if the door wasn’t there. “But I want to know. Why are you crying?” 

Someone touched her hair and made her look up to see who it was. It was a woman she didn’t know, with large arms. For some reason, women little girls don’t know always feel like they can just touch their hair, as if they’re little dogs. The girl ignored the look in the woman’s eyes that promised the world of sweets, and looked back at the closed door. After all, she knew she wouldn’t ever get those sweets.

“Why are you crying?” she now asked loudly, into the wooden silence.

“Hey, sweetie?” she heard the woman with the large arms ironically say behind her back. She didn’t understand irony yet, but thought it was funny that the woman didn’t realise just how diabolical she could be, and that she knew she wouldn’t get those sweets.

“You have to go find your Mom now,” her thick voice said. Still staring at the door, the girl imagined the woman talking through her plump arms, both stretched out, one on top of the other, so they looked like the chunky jaws of a crocodile. “No!” she snapped. And stamped her foot hard against the door. 

“Now that…” the thick-voiced crocodile began behind her, but shut up when the door opened. A voice from within demanded, “Ask the child what she wants.” The little girl couldn’t see the person the voice belonged to, as another crocodile with big arms folded into a barrier, blocked the doorway. The voice was very familiar, so she didn’t have to see the face to know who was speaking. But she really, really wanted to. She peered round the silent croc’s ill-fitting trousers, and stared into the room. 

Not sure what she was expecting to find in there, perhaps a baby unicorn, a rainbow or a bit of glitter at least, whatever she thought it might be, it definitely wasn’t simply an ordinary room. It didn’t even have any slides, beanbags or a fountain of 7-UP, as far as she could tell, and they’d be the first things she thought anyone would demand. 

“I want to know why you’re crying,” she insisted with a wicked stamp of her grown-up sole.

“Come here sweetness,” the fluffy pink voice purred. The barrier immediately unfolded its arms and let her through. The room didn’t get any less disappointing the more she saw of it. It just looked like the room of a hotel she once stayed in with her Mum, except there wasn’t even a bed. Although there she was, sat at the vanity table, wearing a different dress to the one she’d had on before. A woman with very small arms was playing about with her hair. She nodded in approval at the woman through the vanity mirror’s reflection, before turning towards the girl. 

“What’s wrong honey?” 

“Why are you crying?”

“Crying?” At that moment the girl realised she wasn’t crying, and not only that, it looked like she’d never been crying. Her eyes were as bright as Bambi’s, and her cheeks were sherbet dry.

“Before, with that girl in the pink dress.”

“Oh, she just touched me baby. She connected with something deep inside me, and it made me cry.”

“But you don’t even know her.”

“That doesn’t matter honey, people you don’t know can still make you cry.” The girl thought about this for little while, still keeping a vigilant watch on those Bambi eyes.

“Can you cry now, for me?”

“I can’t just do it like that sweetie.”

‘My brother burps when I ask.”

“Yeah? But, hey, this is different. It comes from the heart, you know, it’s my feelings and emotions. I can’t just switch them on and off when I want.”

“My granddad died last month and I didn’t cry.”

“Oh my goodness! Honey, that’s so sad. Do you miss him?”

“Yeah. And it was my birthday last week.”

The girl watched in delight as she noticed her nostrils twitch slightly, along with her eyes. Then slowly, a glossy substance gathered at their corners, until it spilled over and teardrops as pure and sparkling as crystal fell down her berry blushed cheeks. But after they had fallen, the girl noticed with wonder, they didn’t leave any traces. These tears aren’t crocodile tears, well they weren’t crying were they. No, they’re something quite different. They’re Kelly Rowland tears. The girl picked them up carefully from the floor, and put them into the little pockets of her dress. They were hers now, she thought to herself.