In the land of Adara, a boy named Pietro lived with his Grandmother. He loved to go for long walks among the green hills that surrounded his home. One brilliant spring afternoon, Pietro found himself in a beautiful valley filled with trees and flowers - bright and fresh after winter’s sleep.

Breathing the sweet air deeply, he walked along; stopping now and again to listen to a bird sing or to smell a new flower. As he walked deeper into the valley, he heard the sound of water merrily tinkling over rocks in a stream bed. Coming closer to the sound he found himself in a grassy glade with the chuckling stream in the center.

The sun found holes in the leafy canopy overhead and brightly illumined the grass and sparkled in the water. Pietro was enchanted by the beauty of the place; he sat down on a warm smooth rock by the stream to rest.

As he looked out over the water he noticed what he thought was a small patch of fog hovering over the stream. As he looked closer he saw that it looked more like a small cloud and he wondered how a cloud could stay there without moving.
Without warning, Pietro heard a voice come out of the cloud and it startled him so that he fell off the rock he was sitting on and into the stream! The voice in the cloud laughed; a sound like bells ringing merrily.

“You should be more careful, Pietro,” laughed the voice, “you’d better get out the water now; you’re scaring the fish.”

Pietro stood up and stepped out of the stream. Water cascaded from his hair and out of his clothes. “Who are you, cloud, and how do you know my name?” He sat down on the rock and took off his boots. Water poured out onto the grass.

“I am called Miasma, though my name used to be Ariatta, and I have watched you many times as you worked in your Grandmother’s garden and tended her goats and took walks among these hills.” Miasma’s form seemed to grow more compact and her voice grew, it seemed, a little sad. “This glade has been my home now for many years. Except for the deer and rabbits and squirrels I have had little company.”

“But now that you have found your way here I hope you will feel welcome to return and visit me.” The voice brightened, “Of course, falling in the stream is entirely optional.”

Pietro laughed in spite of being wet and a bit chilly. He was becoming accustomed to hearing a cloud speak though he was still very surprised - and curious.

“How can you have two names? And what do you mean that your name ‘used to be’ called Ariatta? Did someone change your name? And why should a cloud have a name anyway? And clouds shouldn’t be able to talk, should they? Your voice sounds like a girl’s voice; are you a girl?” Pietro finally ran down; his immediate questions exhausted.

Miasma floated in the air near Pietro. Her shape shifted as she spoke and the sunlight made rainbow colors sparkle around her. “My goodness what a lot of questions! I don’t know where to begin! I was once a human girl named Ariatta and I lived in the land called Antaris. It is a beautiful place over the mountains far to the North. A mysterious stranger visited at my home one day. He talked with my father and mother and told them of his journeys in many peculiar lands and among many extraordinary peoples. Much of what he said was in the form of riddles which my parents did not understand.”

“I hid in an alcove outside the room where they visited and listened to the conversation and when my parents went to arrange for a meal to be served the stranger called to me - ‘Ariatta, I know you are there; come out here, child.’”

“I came out hesitantly and the stranger said to me, ‘You will have a wonderful life, Ariatta, though you must first experience the Box of Tears. Once you have spent time in the clouds, you will return to your mother and father and your home.’”

“And with this cryptic riddle, the stranger left our house and we never saw him again. I asked my parents what the “Box of Tears” was but they were as puzzled as I; and even somewhat fearful. As I grew older, I always wondered what this strange saying meant but gradually it faded from my mind.”

“One day when I was 12, I wandered high into the mountains looking for wild mushrooms to use in the special dinner mother and I were preparing for my father’s birthday. On my way back with my load of delicate mushrooms, I tried to take a shortcut and came, instead, upon the opening of a large cave. I was drawn almost against my will inside and found that the walls glowed with a luminescent glow that made seeing possible. Soon I could no longer see the entrance where I had come in.”

“What strange place was this? I knew I should probably run but I could not; I kept walking slowly but carefully over the rough broken ground. There was a feeling of great age in this cavern though I’m not sure how I knew this.”

“Suddenly the cave opened out into a large room; a room that had the feel like that of the throne room in the King’s castle in my little town where I had gone with my parents when I was very young. In the center of the room was a large square of polished rock about three feet tall. It gleamed with bright flashes of quartz in the dark rock and it made me uneasy. I became even more uneasy when I saw a large trunk sitting exactly in the middle of the raised rock surface.”

“The trunk was carved with many figures and each figure was crying. Some of the carved people covered their eyes and others held their arms up in grief. They were all looking upwards toward something that was just out of sight - the carving did not show what they were looking at.”

“I felt such a surge of sorrow and compassion for these sad people; I could not imagine what made them so full of sorrow. Without thinking I reached out to touch the carved face of a woman whose hands were wrapped around her own body as if clutching a lost child. As I touched the box the cave was filled with a rumbling sound that caused me to jump back in fear.”

“The trunk was a large box with a lid and the lid was opening slowly by itself. The lid opened fully and I heard a voice, a familiar voice! It was all around me like a fog; above me and below me and around me and it was the voice of the stranger from so long ago.”

“Ariatta.” The voice sounded like the distant rumbling of thunder over the mountains. “You have entered the Great Hall of the King of Sorrows. He is king over all unhappiness and despair and pain.”

“Who would be such a king?”, I asked, “why would he not give up such an unhappy throne?”

The voice rumbled from a distance, “The King, my master, has an important calling. So important that without him the people of the world would soon be crushed under their load of despair. The King of Sorrows travels throughout the kingdoms of the world and gathers the tears of those who sorrow and brings them here to be stored in the Box of Tears. As he gathers their tears, the peoples’ sadness becomes bearable and begins to fade.”

“When they lose a child or a husband or a wife or when a storm destroys their crops, my master lessens their grief so that it can be borne and so that they can heal.”

“But now over many years, the Box of Tears has become full. If not dealt with properly, the tears will spill out and bring new sorrow to all the peoples of the earth. Years ago, my master the King sent me out to find one who was pure of heart and merry in their soul to bear the contents of the Box of Tears and thereby keep the suffering and pain from returning to the earth.”

Ariatta was afraid. “But why me? I’m not special. And I am sometimes sad myself.”

The voice of the stranger drifted all around her. “You are sad, Ariatta, for others. For the child who falls and hurts herself; for the man who loses his business; for the animal caught in a trap. The King of Sorrows asks that you bear the burden of the Box of Tears for a time, and two times and half a time, so that joy and happiness can continue among the people of the earth.”

“What does this mean? How can I bear the tears of the world?” Ariatta slowly backed away from the Box of Tears hoping that the voice would leave her alone.

“If you agree, and you must agree of your own free will, you will join with the tears and together become a great cloud and your name will be Miasma - cloud of sorrows. If you agree, you will float over the earth providing rain and lightning and thunder. And over a time, and two times and a half a time, you will become smaller and smaller until all the tears have returned to the earth as rain. When at last all the tears have returned to the earth, you will become Ariatta again and at that time you will begin a wonderful and happy life.”

Miasma paused in her story and Pietro came to with a start. He had been entranced by the story the cloud had been telling. His clothes were almost dry and the sun was beginning to grace the western sky. He knew he should be getting on home to his Grandmother’s but he was spellbound by Miasma.

“You . . . you must have said ‘yes’ or I would not see you as I do now,” Pietro said hesitantly.

Miasma’s voice answered slowly, “You are right, I did say ‘yes’ to the voice of the stranger. I did not want to but something on the inside of me said it would be all right and my fear began to fade. I told the voice of the stranger that I would bear the Box of Tears if it meant that sorrow for others could be avoided.”

“As I said this, the glow in the room brightened. The walls of the Great Hall were filled with sparks of glowing quartz and I could see the water in the Box of Tears begin to bubble. A fog rose out of the box and engulfed me until I could not see anything but the mist. I cried out in fear because my very being began to fade and grow soft and began to merge with the mist rising out of the box.

“I felt myself join with the sorrows of uncounted people. I could no longer weep though because I was one with those tears and I, Ariatta, became Miasma. I billowed out of the cave and rose on the winds into the sky. In those early days I was a huge cloud bank carried over all the earth by the four winds. There were times when I was a soft gray blanket hiding the sun and there were times I grew into tall thunder heads full of rain and lightning and hail.”

“Everywhere I drifted I brought rain to the earth. Sometimes I would fill a river where people fished. Sometimes I would moisten fields where wheat grew. And, as often as I could, I would bring cool summer rains - rains that cooled the brow of the man working in the field and the woman tending her garden and the children who played in the rain with happy shrieks.”

“So, you see me, my Pietro, after many years of raining and the world is happier because of this. But my time of service to the King of Sorrows is nearly complete and his promise of happiness is nearer day by day.”

Her voice grew still and her form began to expand. “Now I must return to the skies for a time. Please say you’ll come and visit me again, Pietro.”

“I will, most certainly I will, Miasma,” said Pietro, “I’ll return tomorrow after my work is finished.”

Miasma rose into the late afternoon sky. Pietro’s thoughts were filled with wonder and awe at a girl who had become a cloud and borne the sorrows of the world. He made his way back home in time for supper. He told his grandmother about his afternoon walk but he could not bring himself to tell her about the cloud that talked with him.

As often as he could, Pietro returned to the glade and talked with his friend; for that is what the cloud had become. He would sit enraptured as she told him of her journeys. Of people that lived on islands in sea, of those who lived in the shadow of great mountains, and of those who rode wild horses across vast plains covered with green grasses.

He often thought he could see Miasma in the sky overhead as he worked in the fields and the garden. His visits continued through the fall and into the early winter as he endured the cold to visit his friend.

But the day came when the snow and ice did not allow him to make his way up into the hills. And he spent the cold dark months worrying that he would never see Miasma again. He tried to stay busy keeping his Grandmother’s house warm and cheerful but he continued to be anxious about Miasma.

Finally the sun of spring worked its’ magic enough that spring itself was just out of sight around the next hill. A few spring flowers poked bravely up through the warming soil. Pietro made his way hurriedly up the hillsides with fear poking at his heart.

He arrived at the glade; the trees still bare of leaves and pieces of ice clinging to the sides of the stream. The only sound was the sound of the cold water as it rushed along. Then, suddenly, he heard a faint voice, “Pietro, you came!” He turn around and saw Miasma but she was dramatically changed! The cloud was hardly visible and seemed to have difficulty staying together.

“I waited for you through the long winter days and nights. I wanted to talk with you again.” Miasma’s voice grew weaker, “My time is nearly gone.”

“No!” cried Pietro, “No, you can’t go! You must not go, for I have fallen in love with you! All during these months I have longed to talk with you and now you tell me you must go?”

Even as he spoke, a ray of sunshine illumined the last wisps of cloud that had been Miasma. Pietro heard his name called but the sound of it faded as quickly as it had started.

He sat heavily on the same large rock where he had first met Miasma and he began to sob. His shoulders shook with his cries and his hands covered his face and his heart was filled with a great ache.

Suddenly he felt something touch his shoulder. It was a touch so light and delicate that he first thought he imagined it. He looked up and over his shoulder through tear-soaked eyes and saw the blurred outline of someone standing there.

“Shhh, Pietro, it is I, Ariatta. The King of Sorrows has kept his promise and I am myself again. And I, too, love you.”

Rising quickly, Pietro grasped her arms. He saw a slender dark-haired girl with a serious face and merry eyes. Without knowing how, his heart knew that it was Ariatta.

The joy on their faces matched the bright glow of the spring sunshine as they left the glade arm in arm - knowing that their travels through life would be free of the cloud of sorrow.

And the Box of Tears remains . . . .