Written by: Aayotrie Chaudhary - 27019, Grade VIII
Posted on: 13 September, 2022
Cold winds were blowing and a woman was weeping. I watched her as she stood up with the little strength she had left but fell down again almost immediately as her tears flowed out like a broken faucet. It was late in the evening and the sun was beginning to set. The sky was gloomy and gray, the sense of death kept me awake all that dark night, even after I had gone home. I laid awake on my hard cold mattress and just stared at my ceiling. It was like I was tired but just couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes and fall asleep. It was dead silent that night, not even the sound of crickets chirping,nor the sound of cars passing by late at midnight as if someone was returning from a party that stretched into the night. I twisted and turned in the sheets, heck, I even counted sheep but nothing worked. Secretly I knew what was nagging me, the curiosity of what happened to make the woman weep so much at that little grave, could it be an old family pet? Or a kid who lasts long in this cruel world perhaps? At that point I couldn't take it anymore; curiosity had devoured me. I didn’t bother to change out of the pjas I was wearing, I just put on some boots and a warm, blue jacket to block the freezing winds from making me shiver the whole adventure.
I walked to the graveyard since it was just a block away from my house, however, that’s when the problems started to happen. It started to drizzle, which at first wasn’t a big deal, my jacket was waterproof. When it started to rain harder I had to try and find shelter or go home, the problem was I just couldn’t. My curiosity was growing bigger by the second, I was so close to finding out what was at the grave, I couldn’t just give up and go home just because of a little rain, well a lot of rain, but yet, I was still determined. The problems didn’t end at that point though, instead they worsened. Fog started covering everything, I could hardly see two feet in front of me. Finally after lots of stumbling around , tripping over my own feet, I found the small grave. The sun’s morning rays started to enter through the fog as I started to dig , I don’t even know what came over me at that time but I just started to shovel up the soil at the grave with my bare hands after all, I was tired after suffering through the rain and fog the whole night I might as well find out what I came for. Only after I had dug up quite a lot of soil did I realize there could be much better ways to find out such a thing. Upon this realization I got up to leave and tried to rest when I turned and saw the very lady that was weeping the evening before. I was startled so I stumbled back and next thing I knew, everything went a hollow, empty, dark, black.
When I woke up my head was paining so much I didn’t even want to open my eyes but then it hit me, I was awake! But was I really, I was so confused at the time I started to question if I really was in a conscious state or not. I slowly started to open my eyes and my worried parents who were by my bedside sighed a sigh of relief. I suddenly felt very weary but tried to stay awake and conscious as my parents started to scold me for leaving the house by myself and heading to the grave, though the most I could make out of their scolding was “what on earth were you thinking?!,” I was about lose conscious again when I saw familiar face, it was the woman! I opened my eyes again and forced myself to ask while painfully lifting my arm at the woman “what do- what happened?,” my parents who were speaking at the time lowered their voices and the room turned silent as the lady began to speak “recently I have lost a loved one, I have been extremely saddened and gone to their grave every single day since they've passed so naturally I was quite surprised to spot you there with dirt on your hand , wet hair and so early in the morning as well,” she paused before beginning again “I hadn’t spotted you till I came in the morning but you looked like you’d been there all night,” she continued with a questioning look on her face, I just smiled sheepishly “ when I saw you stand up, I went closer to ask who you were and what you were doing, though as soon as you saw me you fell backwards and hit your head on the gravestone,” She added. I was shocked at first, but the shock quickly turned into embarrassment. How could I be clumsy enough to fall and hit my head on a gravestone? That’s the time I remembered the exact reason I had tried to dig up the grave in the first place, what was in the grave? When I asked this question to the lady she just winked and gave me a piece of paper which she told me not to show anyone.
On the paper was written ‘La Llorona’ , her name.
