The Crying Woman

             I come to weeping. Painful sobs rack my body. Each forlorn cry doubles me over and I suddenly become aware that I do not know where I am or what I am doing here. I feel like I just woke up from an extremely sad and disorienting dream. I took a quick blurry-eyed look at my surroundings. The night air is cool on my skin and I appear to be in a wooded area. I do not recognize where I am.

             The reason why I am crying settles on me like a miasma and I immediately wish I didn’t know why I was this way. That emotional door has been pried open and I suspect that once it is open that it will never close like a door that has been rent from it’s hinges. I am weeping because I miss my children. I fervently pray that one day that they will return to me, but I know that what is dead can never return. Then I remember HIM.

             He was always nice even when he was cruel. He had a smile that played across his lips when he gave me a kiss or when he glanced me with his fist. He was beautiful. I wondered why he picked someone as dirty as me. I was damaged goods. A mama soltera. I was struggling to support two kids. He loved me even with my baggage, but there would always be something between us. The constant reminder that I was someone else’s. I loved him and he did his best to love me back. My tears burn their way down my cheek and I wonder why there’s nothing left in me except for love and hate.

             A sound snaps me out of my reverie. Someone snapped a twig a few feet behind me. I ignore it. I am too lost in the moment with my memories and my pain. In the back of my mind, I know he’s drawing closer. He kneels behind me and puts a hand on my lower back and asks what I’m doing in the woods at night. I recognize it truly is odd to see a women weeping in the woods at night. I turn to face him and the instant I see his face I am struck with the horrible realization. He looks just like HIM.

             I give a startled cry and that sends him backwards onto his trasero. He has gone pale. He is a dead-ringer, he could be his twin, he could be him. He scoots backwards, but I am on him in an instant. I pin him down with my weight pinioning him. My long nails ripping at his face and neck. He raises his hands to cover his face, but I change targets and tear into his unprotected stomach. I am lost in my rage.

             My eyes are blood-shot and tear filled. At times I see him screaming in terror and other times I see children weeping. I hear him begging me and I hear HIM telling me the children are in the way. I hear children weeping, pleading, and shrieking as well. My attack slows and I look over the damage I have done. I have ripped him apart. He twitches, but it has become a compulsory motion. He is dead. The image of my children’s bloody faces have begun to fade. The tears have stopped.

             I look closer at the man and realize that they really didn’t look alike, but they probably acted the same, stringing on desperate women and trying to leave them. I get up and look at my blood-stained hands. I wander. I no longer want to think of the man. Something tugs at my mind, but I pay it no mind. Something like the low whine of a child sounds off in my head, but I ignore it. To think of it is surely the path to madness. I don’t think of it, my mind goes blank, and I am swallowed up in a trance.

             I come to weeping. I cry out in despair. Each sob pangs my entire body and I suddenly become aware that I do not know where I am or what I am doing here…

                                                              Llorona