Crying in the Night

One night a child heard crying from somewhere in the house. She wandered the grand manor, in search of the source. Her little bare feet barely made a sound on the old, creaking wooden floor. In each room she looked, she found nothing—nothing but moonlight seeping through thin moth-eaten curtains or chipped porcelain sinks. Down hallways that became galleries for picturesless frames. But still the wails persisted, muffled behind doors and walls.

After searching for nearly the whole night, the child came across her father. Sitting in a room where the wooden stain was uneven in its coverage of the floor and darker in color. He was sitting on the edge of a little bed, something far too small for him. Elbows on his knees with fingers locked together and pressed beneath his nose. As if he were in deep thought.

“Daddy, who is that crying?” The little girl asked softly. But her father didn’t respond, his hollow eyes staring off into the distance. The little girl thought perhaps he didn’t hear her, but as soon as she parted his lips to ask again, the man spoke.

“It’s your mother,” he said. The child tilted her head; she had never heard her mother cry. Was that what it sounded like?

“Why is she crying?” she asked. The man’s body moved up, like he was taking a breath, still frozen in the pose, eyes still looking at something that wasn’t there. His body exhaled, but there no sound of the air escaping his nose.

“She is crying because I buried you in the garden.”