Writer Wednesday #16: Body of Water

On my blog, I am doing a new 'event' called Writer Wednesdays. I post a prompt and others(including me) write something based on that prompt.

            Most anyone who has looked at a map knows that the Dead Sea is located between Israel and Jordan.  What many do not know is how it got its name.  The obvious reason is that nothing can survive in the sea because of its high saline content.  Any aquatic creature that enters the Dead Sea from the Jordan River dies instantly and no plant life can survive the harsh conditions.  But the question still remains: why?

            Long ago, before it was known as the Dead Sea, before time was measured on calendars and clocks, a woman lived in a small cave along the Jordan River.  The river eventually drained into a lake, and the woman would walk to the lake frequently to bathe and swim.  It was here, on the shore of this very lake, that the woman met someone who changed her life forever.

            He was a traveler from a faraway land and the two quickly fell in love.  But, as fate would have it, not everything in the region was as excepting of the new coming strange man.  A large beast lived in the lake, a creature that would later be referred to in Revelations as the Behemoth.  The Behemoth had never bothered the woman before, or any other creature - being a herbivore, it did not need to eat them for food; they were all a part of its world and they all lived in peace.  But the man was not part of this life the Behemoth knew and one of those days that the man and woman spent at the lake quickly became deadly.  The Behemoth killed the man, having seen him as a threat.

            The woman was heartbroken and she cried for many days and nights, never leaving the lake’s shore where her lover had been taken from her.  The more she cried, the saltier the water became from her tears until all of the fish and plants and amphibians inhabiting the lake could not handle it and died.  Even the Behemoth could not handle the harsh conditions and moved on to live in the Jordan River.  After what had happened to her lover, the woman had unwittingly changed the lake - now a sea - into a place where no creature would ever be able to live again.