Professional Crier
My sister’s a professional crier. She cries on cue, lilting, soft cries or wails as anguished as a cantor’s song. She makes money too. They hire her to cry at the ballet, at dinner parties, Episcopal Eucharists, even at funerals, a stranger in the background.
But she never cries when misfortune strikes. She doesn’t weep when her car breaks down, doesn’t wail when her boyfriend Rufus leaves.
Not an anguished sob when bills pile up.
Nancy says pretending keeps you in control.
I cry for her, my cries secret and awkward, like a constipated goose.
It really is easier to pretend.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. Yash’s stories are forthcoming or have been published in Café Lit, Mad Swirl, and Ariel Chart, among others.