The Green Goddess Weeps

“I am weeping….”

DL gaped across Utopia’s suddenly spooky dimness. Looking like she was ready to weep herself. Later she admitted that she’s prone to ‘Empathetic Crying’ while PP is just prone to Empathetic Shock.

How did it get to this point? PP wonders.

When first they’d entered Utopia, DW had been in high spirits. Hailing the two of them enthusiastically: “HEY! How’re you doin? I am Salad Dressing tonight!”
And DL and PP had laughed, mystified as usual, but delighted with the food aspect of the conversation.
“What kind of Salad Dressing are you? Italian?” PP had joked,
Waving her aside, DW frowned, then grinned, “NO! I am Avocado!”
Of course, she is the Green Goddess tonight, DL had dubbed her later and PP had to concur, since DW’s brown soft body was covered in the ‘avocado dressing’ from head to toe, her face a mask of gooey green liquid, her belly breasts, arms, legs covered thickly with the slimy concoction.


“Avocado?” PP had queried, always eager to keep the conversation flowing in Utopia, esp. with DW and most especially with DL’s help and wide-eyed amazement to spur her on. “Is avocado good for your skin?”
“Yes. Very good. It make it soft and very good,” DW, now the Green Goddess for the evening, asserted, rubbing her large sagging breasts absently as she nodded.





PP and DL eyed each other from across the sauna. It was gonna be a good night for stories, no doubt about that.
“Tonight I come early. My husband he stay home. He do the dishes.” The GG proclaimed, continuing her uninhibited avocado goo spreading.
“That’s great,” PP had nodded, “You gotta get your husband to do all the chores so you can come here all the time. He can do the dishes. The vacuuming. Clean the bathroom…’




They all laughed at that one. The Green Goddess shaking her head, serious now. “Africa People. They no believe that the man do the housework. The woman she cook she clean she raise the children. My children now. They all gone. I have no children I ….”

PP, of course, heard this as a good thing. Now The Green Goddess can come to the YMCA all the time what with no children and the husband doing all the housework, but The GG had turned suddenly, unexpected, her gooey face running with streaks of what?

PP had thought it was sauna sweat at first, but then, the pronouncement, with the wail of losing her children, “They call me they say mommy are you all right? We are fine. And I tell them I am sick I have the high sugar I have the high cholesterol I die……and my children they are so far away. I have no children anymore……




I am weeping…..”

And sure enough, she was. DL knew it before PP, her Empathetic Crying on the verge of an appearance. She was all sympathy, “That is so hard. When your children leave the nest. It’s one of those Transitions….It will take time to get used to it….” DL’s voice cracked her eyes were dark and wide and liquidly.

Damn. PP had no idea it was all so suddenly sad. She was still in the joking about salad dressing and getting the husband to do all the chores and then Bam, tragedy strikes with The Green Goddess weeping over the loss of her children and her seemingly imminent mortality.

The tears came fast, wet and dripping down her greeny chalky dark face, her eyes full of water as she shook her turbaned head sadly…..standing now in the middle of the small dark floor of Utopia.




It suddenly was no longer Utopia that’s for sure. But yet, PP still couldn’t believe that the mood had turned so quickly. Were kids really that much to be missed? She’d never know. And it would seem this was a thankful thing. PP certainly didn’t need any such loss in her life. She hated those ‘transitions’ that took time to ‘get over’. Hell, she never got over anything. Transitions were anything but. And she had to wonder if the Green Goddess would get over this loss of her children? At the moment, this seemed unlikely.

Yet afterward, walking back to the Geo with DL to begin their analysis of the evening, PP had to remark that the Green Goddess was resilient. Even though the weeping came on so suddenly, it left just a quickly. For after exiting the sauna, The GG had simply washed the mask of streaked tears from her lovely face, then smiled over at PP who’d gone to shower and was collecting her suit from the sink.

“You take care,” PP had offered, her natural worry for others’ emotional woes voiced in the hollow cliché. If only there were a way to really show how deep the empathy was?

Without the Empathetic Crying, of course.

PP was all for empathy but not for tears. They never accomplished anything. At least for her.

The Green Goddess, on the other hand, once her face was washed clean, seemed tired but revived, smiling at PP she gave her a hearty slap on the back.

“See you next time ok?”

And with that, the Green Goddess turned and headed back into the Sauna, her back straight and dark and proud. The weeping now only a story.