Short fiction: “River of Tears Salt®”

I took a detour deep into the backwoods on the outskirts of Prussian Occupation, where every crossroads is a shrine to either the Virgin Mary or Christ crucified. Is this holy land, or are these shrines borne of a fear of the Evil One himself? Children around here talk of vampires in the hills, repeating stories handed down across generations, tales told often enough that they become true, even if they aren’t. Put just enough fear into the children to keep them safe.

The Holy Mother and/or the Son of God turn up in all directions. I had come here looking for old ghosts but found myself feeling like I was surrounded by angels, instead.

Anyways, never mind vampires — sometimes it’s humans we ought to fear. To ward against vampires (or so I am assuming), they build shrines, cross themselves three times, and maybe keep a few sharpened stakes on hand, because you can never really be too sure.

For humans, they send in helicopters with searchlights, and tactical units combing the ground.

Back on the highway, I traveled through hills and around tiny lakes until at last I saw the sign on the outskirts of town welcoming me to River of Tears, Ontario, Pop. 1000.

Almost every detail was as I had remembered it, as little houses, stores, gas stations, churches, and graveyards came into view. My brain had been keeping a little town stashed away in a box in the attic, and was now bringing it out to play.

Oddly, I found myself suddenly feeling whole again in a way I hadn’t anticipated nor can describe even now.

One thing that was indeed new (to me) was the warehouse belonging to the River of Tears Salt Co., a business that had been established in the years I’d been living back in Ottawa. This left me with a twinge of guilt, but then even the most miraculous blessing comes with a curse.

River of Tears Salt® is treasured the world over for its restorative qualities for those (and only those) born prior to the summer of 1993. All it takes is a single treatment to take a full 27 years off your current age for all eternity!

Forget anti-aging creams, forget plastic surgery, and forget half-baked diets and exercise regimens that are impossible to maintain, and are guaranteed to leave you mired in a neverending funk of self-defeat. These so-called “solutions” can only help you look younger for a little while at best — more likely, they’ll simply leave you looking like a desperate oldster trying to recapture that which is gone forever.

With River of Tears Salt®, you won’t just look almost three decades younger…you will actually be almost three decades younger! That’s right — with just one treatment, your body and brain will literally resume the physiological state it enjoyed in the summer of 1993 until the day you die, assuming that day ever arrives!

And while some illnesses may arise after treatment, you will be inoculated against any and all illnesses directly associated with aging!

WARNING: This product may result in death or unpredictable results when consumed by those born after August 31, 1993, and is recommended for use only by those who had already achieved a mature level of physical development by the above date. Those who were suffering from ill-health and/or any sort of undesirable physical or mental symptoms in the summer of 1993 are strongly advised to avoid this product altogether.

Please ask your doctor if River of Tears Salt® is right for you.

Use only as directed.

Life in a small town as a newcomer can be claustrophobic at the best of times, but when you return as a pariah to half the population, that’s a different story altogether, even if the other half thinks you’re some kind of hero.

With some time to kill before checking into the Old Saloon Hotel, I parked the Mitsubishi and took a stroll along the town’s main drag. I was soon met by a couple of familiar faces — while their names escaped me, I had remembered them as being young newlyweds who had been already expecting their first child, good Catholics that they were. They looked exactly the same as I had remembered, and from what I could see, they now had another young’un on the way.

The young(?) woman immediately recognized me, and hurried over as quickly as she could in her current condition, and threw her arms around me.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”, she squealed, unable to contain herself. Her husband caught up to us at his own pace and gave me a knowing wink, and then smiled and shrugged his shoulders, as if pretending not to know what any of this was about.

We spoke for a few minutes in front of the little hardware store, and I learned that they had made a mutual decision to undergo River of Tears Salt® treatments, and that physically they had both been restored to their summer of 1993 conditions.

The woman started explaining how they arrived at their decision.

“Our son was born in November 1993, and grew up to be a decent and healthy young man. And although my husband and I have always had a good marriage, we always looked back on that pregnancy as having been the most blissful time of our lives, not including the actual delivery and infancy of our son, of course.

“As for me, I never felt as complete as I did when I was carrying our baby inside me. And where lovemaking is concerned, I never felt a deeper connection to my husband as…well, you know…”. She was now blushing.

“Unfortunately,” she said, growing serious, “after our son was born, we were unable to conceive again. And believe me, it wasn’t for lack of trying over many years.” That statement hung in the air for a moment until her husband interrupted.

“Tell him about the accident.”

She exhaled, and a certain spiritual energy seemed to drain out of her. “Our son was racing his motorcycle down Old River of Tears Road, towards Hermitage Hill. We’d always told him to keep the motorcycle off that road — this was before the township went ahead and paved it. Anyway, he swerved to miss an oncoming vehicle coming around a blind corner, and went off the road and was thrown into a big old tree.”

“Head first,” said her husband, staring at the ground while putting an arm around his wife and pulling her tight for a side-hug as she leaned her head on his shoulder. He continued.

“By the time we got to the hospital, he had already been declared brain dead. He just lay there on the bed, wired into some machine, his life beeping away. The doctor gave us a choice — either pull the plug, or have him live at home as some kind of unresponsive vegetable.”

“That’s no choice at all,” I interjected.

“No, it isn’t,” said his wife as she gathered her composure. “We had already been considering the River of Tears Salt® regimen for ourselves anyway, so we asked the doctor whether it could also help our son. Because our son was still in utero in the summer of 1993, however, the doctor advised us to go ahead and do the treatment on ourselves first, just to be on the safe side. His concern was that our son may return to his pre-born state, but outside of the uterus, and would live the rest of his days in intensive care, which wouldn’t have been any sort of improvement whatsoever.”

“So the two of you went ahead and did the treatment on yourselves?”

They nodded.

“And what became of your son? Did you give him the treatment as well?”

“We didn’t need to,” the woman said as she took my hand and held it flat against her belly so that I could feel a tiny hand pushing against the outside world.

Without warning, the awesome wonder of this moment was broken by another young(?) woman, a teenager(?), actually.

“You bastard!”, she screamed as she shoved me, and then started pummeling my upper arm and shoulder before I could mount a defense. And just like that, she stormed off, crying.

“What the hell was that about?”, I asked, rubbing my tender arm and shoulder.

“That’s not really your fault,” said the husband. “Not directly, at least. She went ahead and did the salt treatment without consulting her doctor, nor even reading the directions.”

“Oh?”

“She was a high school girl in 1993, and that summer she was just starting to suspect that she may be pregnant,” the wife said with a laugh. “So now, she’s stuck with morning sickness, forever, and she blames you.”

“Oh.”

River of Tears Salt® is a registered trademark of the River of Tears Salt Company.