The Tear Collector

The Midnight Article "Record Breaking Sadness" was written by u/Metalsa and posted to r/MidnightPaper.

The text of the Article was as follows:

**RECORD-BREAKING SADNESS**

I think it’s safe to say that we’re all familiar with sadness. We’ve all felt it at some point or another, whether it was because of a break up or perhaps a loved one’s death, doing really badly in a job interview or failing an exam. These are all equally valid reason for one to feel sad and therefore are all deserving of a couple of tears.

But humans are, at the end of the day, complex creatures. Far too complex to only rely on this one emotion, humans are capable of going to the other end of the spectrum to experience happiness. That being said, life is not merely just black and white. It’s not even shades of grey. It is instead a canvas filled to the brim with every single color out there. From red to green to blue and then to magenta to chartreuse to cyan.

But what happens when our canvas is overwhelmed by one color. Well that is the case of a man who only wants to be known as Mitch, who just broke the record for most tears cried. When entering his home, whether invited or not, you will notice jar filled with an almost completely clear liquid, on the shelves and all over the floor, I’m told the jars are underneath all the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles. If asked about it, Mitch will tell you that he’s collecting his tears.

“I’ve started my collection when I was eleven. That was when I had my first suicide attempt.”

His voice is extremely quite, almost a whisper and very rarely does he look us in our many eyes. His defeated spirit almost makes us want to leave and give up on our investigation, but alas we resume the interview.

“I’m not sure why I started, though. I guess back then all these tears meant something to me, but now all they do is make me extremely dehydrated.” He cracks a smile as he says this and looks at us for a reaction. We do not respond and that is unfortunately the last time he looks straight at us. We’ve since been informed that that was an attempt at joke. He continues. “Maybe it’s because I wanted to prove to everyone that I really did feel that way, since back then nobody believed me. I have this vivid memory of almost filling up the first jar and going to my dad to show him. I almost had a sense of pride for what I’d accomplished. But when my dad saw he simply took the jar and threw it on the ground, the glass breaking and all of my hard work went spilling on the floor. He, of course, proceeded to beat me after that, since according to him no son of his was going to be “a crying little bitch” as he put it.”

He begins to quietly sob after saying this which allows us to catch a glimpse of his work, seeing as he takes a half full jar and catches every tear from his eye before it has a chance to make it half way down his cheek. We let him finish crying and ask him about how many jars he’s collected over the years.

“I’m not sure. I stopped counting after 56. I don’t know why 56 though. It doesn’t have any real significance, it’s just when I gave up, I guess. These aren’t all of them.” pointing a thumb at the jars on the shelves. “I’ve got a storage unit full of these things. It does pain me to know that my collection will never be truly complete since father smashed the first jar.”

We asked him his thoughts on happiness and how it can be achieved if ever.

“I’m not sure what happiness feels like anymore. Being happy is such a distant memory that I’m not even sure if I’ve ever felt it in the first place. As far as achieving happiness is concerned, I’m not sure I’m the one you should ask. I don’t even know how to try anymore.”

When asked if he would continue to enrich his collection of tears, he had this to say:

“Yes, I will, though, my biggest wish is to someday stop.”

So, there you go, dear readers. A man whose life has been overtaken by sadness to the point where he cried the most tears out of everyone. For now, at least, since the previous record holder, when hearing that someone had bested him had a complete breakdown has not stopped crying since. It remains to be seen who will come out on top in the end. And rest assured, dear reader, we will be here to report on it.

Description:

The Tear Collector is a Biological-Type Oddity in the shape of a seemingly ordinary man known only as "Mitch." He has the anomalous quality of collecting every tear he cries into a vast collection of glass jars. His primary anomalous quality, however, is, as the Paper describes, someone whose "canvas of life" is filled with only one emotion: sadness. Indeed, it seems that he is possessed entirely by the emotion of sadness.

Mitch has had a hard life, being beaten and verbally abused by his father, he attempted to commit suicide at age 11. That was when his strange obsession with collecting every single tear he shed began. He stated that maybe he began doing this as a way to prove to everyone that he really felt as sad as he did. Just when he was about to fill up his first jar of tears to the brim, however, his father took this jar and shattered it on the ground. Since then, that first, lost jar has tormented Mitch, who knows his collection will never be complete.

Still, Mitch continues to fill up mason jars with every tear he sheds. He has so many jars his home is crowded with them, and his collection has overflowed into being housed in a storage container. The jars number in the hundreds.

Mitch states that he no longer remembers what happiness felt like, but he hopes he will one day stop collecting his tears. What exactly has to happen for him to break out of this habit, however, is unknown.

Mitch proves that Midnight Articles do not need to chronicle supernatural Oddities, and that not all Oddities are supernatural. Oddities are places, objects, people, trends and entities with bizarre anomalies. Mitch is simply a man so possessed by the emotion of sadness that he has taken to collecting his own tears, an action that is as disturbing and as heart-wrenching as the worst Oddities that the Paper chronicles.