In the small town of Brooksville Richard Gault was known as the happiest poor man you'd ever meet. He owned almost nothing; his shack of a house was in constant need of repair and his thatched roof and crumbling walls were a sight to see. Three meals a day was always a stretch to provide, and when Richard was employed which wasn't often, his jobs never paid well.
And yet, whenever he was seen, he was seen smiling. He had a wife and a family and that was seemingly enough for him. He said hello to all that he passed in the streets and never failed to be in a pleasant mood. Some even swore they'd never seen the man frown.
At the end of every day Richard trekked up to the grassy hill overlooking all of Brooksville and sat. He sat and thought, observed, and mostly he sat and thanked god for blessing him with a loving wife, healthy kids, and good life.
One stormy November day Richard's spirits fell drastically when his children came to him crying that they were hungry, and he could not provide for them. He told them he would figure everything out and went up to the hill and did something he hardly ever did: he cried.
He cried and wailed and sobbed not out of sadness but out of desperation. As he cried he opened his eyes and saw a rather peculiar thing: diamonds, and gems, and jewels. Lying at his feet. He picked them up to examine them. They had come out of no where, or so it seemed. His utter confusion caused him to cry once more, and as he did, more jewels fell from his eyes. He wiped his eyes and instead of a tear a ruby took its place. It was that November day that Richard Gault discovered that all of the sudden his tears weren't tears at all: they were jewels. Jewels that were extremely valuable. Jewels that would make him rich.
He ran back to his house, the gems cradled in his arms, laughing the whole way. When he shared the news with his family they could hardly believe him. When his son asked him to show them he realized that he would have to cry to prove it, and crying was something he rarely did. He would have to become deeply upset to cry. But it was worth it.

From that day on Richard changed in two ways: he went from a man with practically nothing to the richest man in all of Brooksville, and went from being the happiest man in the Brooksville to by far the saddest. Every day he was constantly thinking up new ways to make himself cry, to sob, to produce the jewels that saved his family from starvation. It started fairly simple: staring at the sun for a prolonged amount of time, and cutting onions. But he soon discovered that this caused at most a few tears, not nearly enough. He then began asking the people in Brooksville to tell him the saddest moment of their lives, as he was a very sentimental man and felt other's pain deeply. In exchange for telling him their stories, he offered them a few of his jewels in return.
But soon he had asked practically everyone in the town for their stories and hearing them again was not the same.
He then willed himself to recall the saddest moments in his own life, the death of his father, the times when he was truly uncertain if he could support his family for a day longer.
But now that life was so full of wealth and good fortune, it was difficult for Richard to become sad.
He could have stopped, he had cried enough so that his family was now well off.
But as word spread around the town people begged him to share some of his newfound wealth with them, so that they too could be put out of their poverty. Richard could not refuse them because underneath all the sadness he caused himself he was still a kind man.

Until one day, he wasn't anymore.

It was almost as if this constant sadness he now felt overtook him, consumed the person he once was.
People now swore they couldn't remember the last time he smiled.
He too, couldn't remember what it was like to be happy. The only remaining positive part of his life was his wife and kids.
Which, Richard realized, was a problem.
With them around he was constantly reminded of his love for them.
He decided they had to go.
His wife begged him to let them stay.
The more she begged the more he cried.
As he hugged his kids for the last time he told them he was sorry, he truly was, but what could he do?
He had to keep crying.
It was almost as if nothing else mattered.
Before they walked out the door his wife turned to him one last time and asked him if it was really worth it.
He didn't answer and instead he sobbed.
He had bought a house for his family to move into in the neighboring town and promised to send them more than enough money to live off of.
After the shock of living without his family wore off Richard knew he had to think of something new.
All of the sudden his wife stopped receiving money from Richard.
Because he stopped sending it.
The thought of his family without any money, starving once more put Richard in a deep depression.
He had become an expert at orchestrating his own despair.
Months passed and the town was full of whispers and stories of what had become of Richard Gault. Rumor had it he burned down his house so he had to sleep outside in the dead of winter, he didn't eat for a week, cut himself off from communication with any other person entirely.
Soon enough the entirety of Brooksville was filled with exclusively wealthy people. They were so rich that they packed up all of their belongings and moved to a nicer area of the country because now they could afford it.
Brooksville became a ghost town.
And in it lived the ghost of a man.
Richard Gault was once a happy man.
In his place lived a man with so much sadness inside of him that with time it was what he became.

It was November once again, exactly one year after Richard discovered his tears turned into jewels.
He climbed up to the hill he sat on every night, the only part of his life that remained from what it used to be.
He sat and cried.
Cried at what his life had become.
Cried at who he had become.
He cried as he sat in the gleaming heap of jewels that had gathered over the last couple weeks.
He continued to cry.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
When he pulled it away he saw something he hadn't seen for a year-
A tear drop.
Smeared on the back of his hand were tears.
Real, human tears.
No jewels.
He realized with immediate horror that as quickly as his gift had come it had vanished.
It had lasted him one year.
One year in which he destroyed his life completely.
He sat on the hill and thought.
Thought of how he had absolutely nothing left.
He observed.
Observed the once bustling town of Brooksville that was now empty and desolate.
And then he thanked God.
But he couldn't come up with anything to thank him for.
He no longer had a loving wife.
She hated him.
He had kicked her out.
He no longer had healthy children.
He had starved them to fulfill his desperate need for sadness.
And his life was anything but good.
He had ruined it.
And without a family, a house, or a need to buy anything, what use did the gems have?
He cried real salty tears that night, and looked at the Jewels surrounding him, the value of which were absolutely nothing.