"THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD"
by Teri Vlassopoulos

When Mimi's mother talks about her father, she will end the conversation by asking Mimi to bring her Kleenex. If there isn't any, Mimi is sent to the store to buy some. They’re always running out of Kleenex at their house because of her mother's tendency to leak big tears and her little brother's snotty nosed allergies. Mimi’s brother is also “sensitive”. Even the massive packs bought in bulk from Costco don’t last. Mimi has suggested more environmentally friendly handkerchiefs, but her mother thinks they’re unhygenic. Maybe they are.

Mimi only cries in the shower, and then she wipe s her face and blow s her nose with a washcloth. But Mimi doesn't cry very much. She has realized that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who cry and those who don't. She can't say that one is better than the other, but there’s a difference. And the difference is that the non-criers are the ones who are sent off to buy Kleenex, even if they’re the ones suffering more than the criers. Not that she has been able to quantify her suffering and compare it to her brother’s or her mother’s, but on her walks to the corner store she is often overcome by a feeling of grave injustice.

Mimi's mother likes to list off the reasons why she suffers. She suffers because her husband has died, she works too hard, her baby son is always sick, her daughter is emotionally distant, she ha s headaches, and no one helps out with the cleaning. Mimi believes that these are very valid reasons for one to suffer. She’s just not sure if they’re all true.

Sometimes when her mother talks about her father, Mimi gets angry. Once before being sent off to pick up Kleenex and dinner because her mother was too distraught to cook she said, "But you two were going to get divorced anyway." Her mother slapped her. The statement was correct, but obviously she should have kept her mouth shut. Another time, recently, she said, "He died two years ago. Why do you still act like this?" There was no slap, but a look, a hard one.

Because Mimi is a non-crier, her mother and brother don't think she gets as sad as they do. This isn't true; she isn’t a robot. But, when her father died, she went to his office in the basement and rifled through the drawers. She found some interesting stuff. A pack of pornographic playing cards, three letters from his mistress (who didn't show up to the funeral, but who was the instigator of the divorce that never saw completion), and, on his bookshelf, a few books of poetry, tucked away. Mimi threw out the letters, flipped curiously through the cards, but read the books. This is one of the poems she found:

Must I remind you, Cleis
That sounds of grief
are unbecoming in
a poet' s household?

and that they are not
suitable in ours?

It’s a Sappho poem. Her father's mistress gave him the book; there’s an inscription. Mimi’s father wasn't a poet - he was an engineer - but the poem comforted her. She used it as justification for her comparative stoniness.

Mimi recited the poem once to her teary little brother, who responded by calling her weird. It was something he said to her more often than not. Her mother emerged from her bedroom to see what the commotion was about, and Mimi held the book in her left hand like a preacher with a bible, pumping it in the air and telling her emphatically that nothing was wrong. Her mother had never seen the inscription and so Mimi felt powerful with it, the words pounding in her ears, blood rising up and colouring her cheeks. She was not usually so emphatic.

“Why are you waving your arms?” her mother asked in her weary, cracking voice.

“I’m not. I don’t know what his problem is.” She lowered the book. “Nothing’s wrong anyway.”

Her two family members looked at her expectantly. They were hoping for an outburst; they were hoping for tears.

“I mean it.” Her voice was firmer. “Really”.

And maybe Mimi didn’t mean it, but she didn’t cry.

---

Teri Vlassopoulos likes seeing people’s reactions when she tells them that she works for an accounting firm. She has been writing zines for the past ten years, and has been published in Broken Pencil and Kiss Machine. She lives in Toronto.

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