I can´t stand men who cry. I really can’t. It goes beyond my understanding or my control. And I am not speaking of repulsion, or at least, not only of that.
It is something more visceral. Men who cry, far from touching me, provoke in me an emotion that is similar to disdain. And those who dedicate their tears to me, -I am not referring to those who happen to cry before me for a circumstantial reason-, but to those who on purpose try to impose their sorrow or their sensibility or their pain on me. I refer to those who rejoice in the contraction of the muscles of their faces until they suppress any trace of their cheekbones or their noses while they tighten their eyelids to make their tears flow as if they had rehearsed it over and over again in front of the mirror…For those men who cry to me, I feel an irresistible desire to hit them so that they cry for a reason because something really hurts them.
I have said this reaction is beyond my control. But normally, I restrain it. Anyway, it is usually by chance that I see men crying. I mean, when I accidently happen to be near and I cannot help to attend the opprobrium and feel embarrassed for them. I remain impassive on the outside, until an acid secretion of the stomach, a horrible fury that grows upwards ends up drowning me. Then, a liberating impulse makes my hands shake, and I leave the scene with some excuse. This happens to me most of the time and has no serious consequence to anybody except to me. Since I remain in people´s memories as a particularly impassive person. Impassive, please note the terrible paradox of my situation, as it really makes me sick. In fact, I can hardly take it.
I have said this reaction is beyond my control, but normally, I restrain or I resort to a preventive strategy. I do not expose myself to aberrant situations anymore. I have not gone to funeral or memorials or to any social gathering that evoke people´s deaths for years. To me, far from expressing sympathy for the mourning, the repeated images of their contorted, moaning, tear-gyser faces make me nauseous. They inspire desires of insulting them mercilessly, to tell them to leave the dead in peace and stop disturbing them with their useless cry… That is why I do not go any more. What for? Sometimes I think of my own funeral and I see myself in the star role of the dead body, lying cold, defenseless, surrounded by men who cry over my body, and who moan and cry until the coffin fills up with tears. It is a nightmare. I only hope there is nothing like consciousness in the afterlife. For the fire of hell seems less scary than the idea of elevating myself over my dead body and see those men crying for my death, without being able to do nothing but to writhe in disgust.
This reaction is beyond my control, it is true, but normally I restrain: I try not to think in my funeral to avoid going insane. And so, I can continue living, of course, not without consequences. Over time, it´s got worse. I cannot stand the cry of children, or anything like babies’ crying. It is not that I do not want to have them near me: it is just that I can´t stand them. It is a profound decision, entirely conscious, as the one of not going to burials or funerals anymore. Why should I expose myself to commit any atrocity if I can avoid it beforehand? Yet, I cannot always avoid it. As I´ve said: normally, I restrain, but let’s agree that the rule also includes the exception. Exceptions, statistical oddities, are what sustain and delimit what is normal. Maybe that is why these episodes are my only justification, the fact itself that they occur so seldom makes me normal. As any other, except I cannot stand the crying of men, and that due to such extraordinary circumstances, I cannot restrain myself. That is why -I insist-, this reaction is beyond my control and, although this fact does not justify me, the occasional nature of what you technically call “homicides”, deserve some consideration. Out of context, I admit, they would seem murders in cold blood…In cold blood! Another paradox: I swear that my blood boils. But Nature is wise, and although I cannot stand the crying of men, it is also true that, normally, I’d restrain. If you allow me, I would like to emphasize: it is their exceptional character that justifies myself.