«The Princess Who Wept Diamonds» by Frank Tropea

My name is Frank Tropea. I was born in 1949 in Massachusetts to an Italian family. When I was little, I always loved fantasy and fairy tales. Later on, ghost stories and the supernatural were added to the list. After enlisting in the Navy I completed college with a B.A. in Lit and Psychology. Ten years later I went to Harvard Extension to get my M.A. in Lit. and Psychology. The human mind and all its gifts and pathologies fascinated me no end.
After several vocational rocky starts in my life, I finally got a computer job as a Case Specialist in a courthouse which I’ve held for a very long time. In that time, I’ve seen how badly astray the human mind and behavior can go and it never ceases to amaze me.
Tough, as in most fairy tales, I would like to believe that good always triumphs over evil, with today’s society and or dark current political situation, I’m not so sure of it. If we are to survive as a society, even as a species on earth, we must, I think, reclaim somehow the better angels of our natures and not give in to the cynicism, materialism and general negativity one sees so much of on the news.
We must somehow recapture our wonder and innocence of childhood when, in fairy tale and fiction, goodness was prized and always won out in the end. Like the good people in fairy tales and myth we must relearn to be kind to each other and to animals, too, and to treasure each new day as not only a gift from God but a chance, somehow, to make the world a better place.