DUTCH TEARS

A story in three parts.

~ooo000ooo~

~PART ONE~

Before

As soon as she stepped onto the school bus, Carol was flooded with fond memories of her own childhood in Kentucky, horsing around on the way to school with her friends. It was the smell that brought it all back – that distinct mix of diesel, vinyl, and sweaty, hyperactive children.

She sat at the front with Sophia's science teacher Mrs. Rupert and the mother of another student she didn't know – another volunteer chaperone. Trying not to be obvious about it, she scanned the seats to find Sophia, head in a giggling huddle with her friends, and she couldn't help but smile. The bus rumbled to life and they left the school behind to head for the Science Factory – a hands-on children's museum and educational center that focused on inspiring interest in chemistry, biology, and physics.

When they arrived at their destination, the kids were nearly in a frenzy. There's nothing quite like a field trip to get a group of sixth graders all riled up. With much shouting by Mrs. Rupert, they eventually made their way inside to start their tour. The hands-on nature of the displays helped keep the kids actually paying attention, though they were rowdy. Carol mostly trailed at the back of the pack, looking over each exhibit as they passed, and making sure no one got left behind. The museum was fascinating – she would have loved to go to a place like this as a kid. As it was, she was enjoying it quite a bit anyway.

In the physics section, one demonstration in particular caught her attention. They were talking about something called Dutch Tears – tadpole shaped bits of glass made by dropping a blob of molten glass into cold water. What made them interesting is that they could be struck on the rounded bulb end with a hammer and not shatter, yet the barest bit of damage to the tail would make them explode violently into glass powder. Behind his plexiglass barrier, the presenter demonstrated both traits. When he nipped the tail, the little glass bulb went POP and instantly burst into a cloud of glass dust. When it exploded, the kids all ooohed and aaaahed appropriately with a smattering of woahs!

The presenter then talked about what makes them do that, using phrases like "tensile stress", "mechanical strain energy", and "failure front", but Carol was busy thinking about how the little glass bits came to be. Dripping molten glass hissing and sizzling into icy cold water. In an odd way, she almost felt sorry for the little things. It seemed poetic that such a shock would cause the glass to harden itself against damage. But for all its strength, the stresses inside it made it terribly vulnerable. The tiniest break in the wrong place brought the whole thing to utter destruction.

She followed the group around the rest of the afternoon, listening to various demonstrations, poking at the odd exhibit, and keeping one eye on Sophia and the other kids. But even after they'd all filed back onto the bus and disembarked at the school, after Sophia had chattered her ear off in the car on the way home, after she'd made supper which Ed had insulted and thrown into the trash before leaving to find something "edible"...she kept coming back to think on the sad little Dutch Tears, each one fighting against itself, until eventually tearing itself apart.

~ooo000ooo~

~PART TWO~

Creation

The days wore on, and still Sophia was lost in the woods. Her baby was gone, and the guilt and fear burned in her heart, consuming her. Carol filled her days with tasks that kept her hands occupied and her mind busy enough to keep from thinking. She cooked and cleaned and scrubbed and mended. She tended to everyone and everything, trying to make up for all the wrong she'd ever done. Trying to earn back her daughter. During the nights, though, she was helpless to whatever horrors her mind chose to torment her with.

Tonight, she dreamed of Hell, where she knew she would end up soon. Someone like her couldn't survive long in this new and brutal world. And someone like her would surely burn for her sins. The dream seemed to go on forever, as dreams of Hell should. She saw Ed, a thousand Eds, all looming over her, laying down abuse like she'd never seen in life. The pain was beyond anything she'd experienced before, and she knew it wouldn't end. She'd prayed for his death, so now she would have to suffer the pain of him forever.

And in the distance, out of reach, there was always Sophia, screaming in the fires, dying and dying and dying again. Carol watched over and over as her baby girl was torn apart by rotting monsters and eaten alive, only to be vomited up and stitched together into another monster to join the frenzy.

Sophia.

Carol burned in the flames. Her flesh turned to ash and was whisked away in the roaring winds of the furnace of Hell. She was left with nothing but herself – her true self, heart and soul, all the ugliness bared to the universe. And still the fires burned her. The heat was unbearable, and she screamed with no voice into the void. She felt herself coming apart, slipping. Everything turned molten, glowing red, fluid. She fell into the nothing.

She screamed for her baby. For Sophia.

She woke herself with a strangled cry, lurching bolt upright in her cramped RV bed, sweating and shaking, unable to hold back the sobs. Burying both her face and the sound, she cried into the pillow until morning. And when the sun had risen, and she was going about her day, she didn't feel real. Her flesh was imaginary. Her soul was real, and it was still burning, still molten.

Later that day in front of the old barn, she found Hell once again. Amid gunfire, screaming, and death, she found Hell, and it wasn't any of those things. It was knowing she hadn't done enough, hadn't been good enough, hadn't fought hard enough to save Sophia. Her body ran forward, was caught, struggled, cried. But her soul went cold. Just as she had been getting used to the unbearable heat, she was plunged into crackling ice.

Sitting in the RV after, she knew the truth. She had died with her daughter, and what was left now was something new. Something different. Something strong. She felt her molten soul harden around her imaginary flesh and pull tight, trapping what was left of her inside, but protecting what was left as well. She would live frozen in the agony of that moment forever. But nothing could hurt her anymore.

~ooo000ooo~

~PART THREE~

Destruction

Over and over Carol was struck with the hammer blows dealt by life. Over and over they glanced off her hardened surface, unable to damage the frozen heart within. She had known from the day the shell of her daughter staggered from that barn that nothing could touch her in that way again, though it was hard to believe at first. But with each blow that failed to break her, her confidence in her own strength grew. After being told and believing for so long that she was weak, she finally understood her strength.

Rejection, death, loss, suffering. They happened, but they didn't touch her the same way as before. She still cared for her friends – her family. But that caring never quite reached as deep as it once would have. The only thing that caused her confidence to waver was the children. She'd failed her own child, so she was determined to do everything possible to protect all the children even peripherally in her care, even if it meant going against the wishes of their parents. It didn't matter what they thought. The children needed her now so they wouldn't need her later.

Then sickness came to the prison, and with it, the first stirrings of actual fear since that day at the barn. When Ryan died from his wounds, he laid upon her a burden she was unwilling to carry. She was strong now, and untouched by life's cruelties. Though her soul resisted being made vulnerable in that way again, she couldn't refuse him. She became a mother once again. She could see that Lizzie was broken and Mika was weak, but was determined to make them strong enough to survive where Sophia had not.

The sickness spread, and she did what she had to do to protect her family, but it was to no avail. More people died. When Rick asked if she had killed Karen and David, she told him the truth, trusting that he would understand that was the way it had to be. If anyone could understand killing to defend family, it should be Rick. But instead he cast her out, separating her from the daughters she had sworn to protect. In shock and surprise at his rejection, she drove away, but couldn't stay away for long. When she returned, it was not to her home, but to a battleground. More loss. More death.

She found Tyreese and her girls – Rick couldn't keep her away from them. Life on the run was difficult, until they found the house in the pecan grove. A potential start to a new life – a new home. But there was one last blow yet to be delivered.

It happened again. Her child was dead because she hadn't done enough to protect her. Mika was dead at the hands of her sister, and she finally understood how broken Lizzie truly was. The destructive forces that had tried to tear Carol apart when Sophia died had been frozen with her soul, but had never dissipated. They were still there, trapped inside – straining for the chance to finish their work. She could feel the quivering pressure within as she buried a blade in the skull of one child. She'd failed her children. All of them. She knew what had to be done next.

The shot rang out through the silence of the grove, and her third daughter's body fell to the earth. It was the final hammer blow. She felt it strike, but this time it didn't strike at her hardened shell. Instead it struck in the one place she was vulnerable, triggering violent destruction. The failure front ripped through her heart, mind, and soul, and as it went, the powerful forces trapped inside her were released, tearing her apart in an instant. All her strength meant nothing. She closed her eyes and felt herself shatter explosively, and she was nothing but dust swirling in the winds.

When she opened her eyes, she was still in the grove. Lizzie's body was still motionless on the ground. Sophia and Mika were still dead. And Carol was still in Hell, and Hell lasted forever.

~ooo000ooo~