Esperanza

Once in my early teens, seeking to relieve the tedium, I let off a fire extinguisher. It was a warm day and the exercise was intended to provide both entertainment and a welcome cooling shower for my companions. In this measure it was successful, but I'd only intended a brisk squirt and once the lever was depressed it irrevocably stayed that way. The stream was unending and all attempts to halt it proved fruitless. The situation was becoming desperate, as this took place in furnished quarters. I was left with no option but to point the thing out of the window until fully discharged, thereby betraying my misuse of emergency appliances to a wider audience than intended.

It would indicate me as callous, lacking in empathy, quite without the basic human wherewithal to engage sensitively with the emotions of another, if I were to admit that, whenever confronted with a person crying I experience an acute jolt of memory back to the day of the unstemmably flowing fire extinguisher. So I won't. In particular, on such occasions I do not recall the sense of rising panic, nor does the repeating tickertape thought: "ohmygodhowdoimakethisstopohmygodhowdoimakethisstop" return to mind. At all.

And I certainly don't hang anyone out of the window as a last resort, in case you were wondering.

It's clear that no-one ever told Esperanza to pull herself together. No stiff upper lip for her. There's a Mediterranean saint for you - an English equivalent, faced with the suffering of Aar Lord would probably set her face at lemon sucking and possibly emit a disapproving tut. I expect if Esperanza ever did dry up someone would have been quick to restart the waterworks:

"Oh hello Esppie dear, how cheerful you're looking today, glad to see you're not letting thoughts of Christ's suffering get you down so much now... you know, the crucifixion, darling... with the crown of thorns, the nails and that." And she'd be off again, snot everywhere, shares in Kleenex, etc.