The Tear-Drinkers: Science Fiction

A wave of sorrow was the first warning of the tear-drinkers' migration. The first year, the colonists had no idea what it meant, and several died of grief when the migration arrived. Well, that was what it was written down as in people's journals from that time. The official record was that they had died of extreme dehydration over the course of two days. At the first wave, even those people with some natural resistance to sorrow or weeping didn't know what to do. Some tried to treat it as any other depression. Some tried to get others to shake it off. Some believed there was a toxin or poison in the ground and the colony was doomed--those were not so far off. Then the tear-drinkers arrived, and all the emotions were doubled and tripled. A few of the resistant tried to go out and drag the butterfly-covered weepers back indoors, but they succumbed instantly to the touch of the tear-drinkers' proboscises.


Inspiration: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10826-moths-drink-the-tears-of-sleeping-birds.html via DamnInteresting
Story potential: Medium
Notes: Not so much a story idea as a pretty interesting hazard to colonization.