On crying

I stop.

I stop, right there, and I listen. I close the page, put the book down and I stare. That’s all I do. Just stare. I stare into space and I wonder how I’d cope. I wonder what I’d do if it were me. And I feel it coming. I feel it in the way my face tightens and the sparking in my eyes.

I open the page. I look at one sentence.

That’s all it takes. One sentence.

I’m crying. Not quiet, ladylike crying but raw, loud, snotty horribly crying.

And I can’t stop myself.

I’m Jacynth in the garden, with Miss Wilson hovering behind. I’m Madge, grasping the flaming orange handkerchief my brother offfers me. I’m without Beth. I’m watching a child clamber through the fence of Out-With, just to play with his friend. I’m in the last glorious moments of Millions. I’m even bloody Rodimus Prime when finally somebody believes in me and I leave all childish things.

There are moments, see, when I hunt this out. When I am consumed with sadness, when everywhere I look looks the same, and I feel so removed from the world; I need it then. And it is an indulgence. It is a moment where I tell myself it’s okay. And it is. It will be okay.

All I have to do is keep reading.