Cha-ching

You know how they say that one may loose their tongue? Well, it kinda is more scary than you think. You see, in my world, all of your verbs are very precious.

I live in a world where there is money, but it really doesn’t count. What does count is how many verbs you can say, you understand, you know.

I live in a city called Mouthful. Ironic! I know! The thing is, that the city’s name have changed few times, even in my life time and it’s because of the patriots. The birthgivers who want their offspring to know where they come from.

Forgive my language, I have had a rough childhood and my Sally whom I love more than anything, had to make some rough decisions in the past. But thankfully I can now tell my tale to you.

***

In Verbage, where I was born, and which shortly after was renamed Mouthful, we had an institution of strange men called Executors. They basically were like your normal tax collectors, except they would scar you for eternity. They would take away the verbs from you. And not like leaches, no, they could grant your wish, your deepest desire but the price was usually crippling.

My Sally - the birthgiver - was one of those unfortunate souls who had to stood against a strange decision. And I mean the impossible strange, a situation which will impact life - my life for instance.

I was born very sick. Doctors wouldn’t give me much time or even chances. My sickness was causing my lungs to stop developing. As you can imagine, shortness of breath is a bit problematic especially for a growing child who is getting more and more active. I vaguely remember that time, but I do have some recollection of the events.

I remember my birthgiver would be always there, picking me up and crying. She would tell me that I would constantly faint and just fall asleep all the time. I remember having a friend and then not. Sally would always make sure that there were not many temptations around me to be active, she would constantly teach me how to meditate, control my breath.

But my expiration date was coming shortly, she couldn’t afford any medication. You see, money in my world was obsolete. You could still use it to get some stuff, like more advertisement in your news or monthly fee for fresh air access, but if you wanted to have a house or food or, for instance, get some very rare medication, you would have to have to pay more verbal price. In my world, your language was the price. Some would pay with their own verbs or even sentences, some would put in debt others.

Since I wasn’t yet of age, my birthgiver would have to make me in debt, after all it was my life affected. But the price was substantial. They would take away a verb from me which was really dear to her, she would never hear it from me again, so we had to improvise. That’s when I started calling her - birthgiver.

If you ask me what is the feeling of your language being taken away, you probably had it from time to time - a moment when you forgot how to call something and then it comes back when you don’t even think about it? Yeah, that’s it, except it never comes back for me.

And so there was I. In an almost a blink of an eye I suddenly woke up in arms of a man who gave me back my life, but took away a verb that my m..birthgiver would be missing till end of her days.

Where was my father then? Well, he was getting licensed as Executor, so he would spend a lot of time in their ministry and trying to master their abilities, but it wasn’t only that. They were actually genetically modified to be able to take away someone’s words, they would have to go through some sort of trials and their body would deform in the process. That was also a reason why all of the Executors would wear long, silky robes with big hoods that would in normal circumstances make sure that no one would see their faces. Except in the moment of granting favors. Then the person affected would have a very good look at what they have became.

I remember very well the strange, three nostrilled nose and weird, almost octopus looking like, mouth of the Executor that gave me breath. His name was Aron. My father’s name was Matt.

You might think then, that because my father was learning how to become one of these guys, he would perhaps experiment on me or my birthgiver? Well no, we would barely see him as a matter of fact. I don’t even remember his original face, not that I have seen him after the change either, but we would live in a good house, have an automobile to go around, I wasn’t going around hungry either. That’s all I remember about my father.

The day after Aron granted my mother’s wish, I remember I tried calling her, but it felt like the sounds just couldn’t get through my mouth. Like I would start drowning if I would speak them out loud. I was crying, but I had all the rights on this god’s green earth to do so. A child doesn’t really understand what’s happening when these things are occurring to them, they just spiral out of control and burst into tears until they pass out. That would be me for quite a long time.

But let’s not prolong my childhood days, let’s look into the future and focus on here and now.

I wanted to find my father, you see. My Sally just recently was falling into some strange illness that would make her completely emotionless. One moment she wouldn’t care if something would happen to her, me or anyone else around and the next moment she could become violent against herself, banging her head against wall or trying to feel anything really, but nothing would help her. So I had to find father to help her.

One would think that as long as you know where your parent works, it would be way easier to find him in person, but dealing with Executors was always pricey. Getting there already costed me few words, but what price would I have to pay to actually meet him?

The Executor’s Office was located in the middle of the Silent District. That was a place where people who paid almost ultimate price in their verbs would live and spend their days silently. How am I supposed to find a place in the district like this without asking for directions?

That’s basically where my story began.

**

It was a sunny day, I was facing the entrance gate to the Silent District and trying to memorize the map of the place and way to get to the Words Office where Executors would reside. The general problem and risk of getting into the area was that, the more you asked around and the closer you were getting to your goal whatever it was in this place, the more verbs and sentences you would loose, so you had to be very careful what you were asking for.

At this point you’re probably thinking, why there was no way to get the language back? Well there were cases when people got their vocabulary back, but everything they received for it was taken away, so you have to be mindful about this risk when dealing with Executors.

With all of this being said, I spent years of preparation before this day. We knew that my brithgiver’s gene pool wasn’t that great, but there were a lot of unknowns: when would the defects manifest themselves? Would they intersect and create some bigger issue? Can something be done to slow down the deterioration? More and more questions were coming up every day, so I was spending my days just reading books, all of them. science, magic, fantasy, fiction, documents, newspapers you name it. Just to build up my vocabulary, to be able to ask about things many different ways.

“Okay Ash, it was left, left, right, then straight three times. Then you’re on the way to the park on the left and then right, left, left…” a headache started crawling up to my temples.

I closed my eyes and tried to make a memory of the map as good as I could. I knew that standing there for too long won’t do me any good as any passing by guard would ask me a question and I would probably have to answer it risking spilling my words left and right. It was definitely time to go. I looked up to the road and with my map in my head and mouth shut close I started walking.

*

It was a good, few kilometers walk, with a lot of dead end alleys on the way, that I could end up on, but I tried to get as far as I could without talking to anyone. After about two hours of blindly looking for the right streets, I felt like I was more lost than before. I wanted to cry.

All this time I spent walking I was surprised how many people were around me, they would be completely silent, just passing by each other, sometimes bowing to one another and giving some strange hand signals. Everything was quiet, yet the crowd was communicating.

When I realized that I couldn’t find the right way to the Executor’s office I really wanted to ask someone, anyone for directions, but I didn’t knew their signs. How could I communicate with them without knowing how to talk? All these years of reading and storytelling didn’t really prepared me for this situation. I still took my chance, perhaps they were just avoiding speaking to not loose their words. But how do I formulate the question? Let’s try with the obvious one:

“Excuse me, good man, I am looking for the Executor’s office, can you help me?” myself asked one of the passerby.

As soon as spoken the words out loud, couldn’t really get back the understanding of said words. Dreaded that mission would go south from here, myself stared back at the person, who gave biggest grin seen by another human.

For a moment my thoughts were racing. Impending fear crawled slowly to my chest. Is he going to ask me a question back or give an answer?

“Let me give you a little map my child. Who are you looking for out there?” said man, while understanding of the spoken words left his eyes and he begun to draw something on a napkin he had at hand.

Suddenly understanding of the <<me>>, <<looking for>> and <<for>> came back to me. It felt like remembering something myself struggled to recall.

All of my body cells were shouting that answering questions was a big trap, so me tried to conceal answer as much as possible:

“A close friend from my childhood” more verbs slipped away out of memory.

Man grinned like he has had an epiphany right now. He passed map over to myself and asked yet another question:

“Let me give this to you, I feel it’s important. Would you like something else from my stand?” I had to really push away the urge to open my mouth yet again, so I only shook my head, took the napkin with me and ran away.

This was more strange than I expected. What kind of transactions were these. The creepy crawlies started sprinting through my spine. If this was just a talk with normal street seller, how will it go with at my father’s job?

I opened the napkin with a picture of a lot of lines, x-es and some strange signs which didn’t really resembled words. I assumed that the stick figure is me, but the rest made no sense to me. Like the old scavenger hunters used to say - x marks the spot. And so I followed the road.

Some of the signs the seller drew on my handmade napkin map stared slowly making sense. A fish represented a store with fishing equipment, a dot meant a place with big round sign from a music store and so on. I felt like I am getting closer and closer to my father’s work place. More and more people were trying to catch my attention and some of them started throwing some verbs at me, names, places, expecting any response back…

As I kept walking I suddenly saw this glass building made out of black or darkened obsidian. It looked very mysterious and more scary than I hoped for. I was in awe that I didn’t see it from distance.

I went through the massive, encrusted doors and saw that inside looked like from one of those old pictures with people wearing suits and being handsome. Nothing that I expected once again, so it startled me a little bit. There was a desk with some lady behind it, which I approached just to hear from her:

“Welcome to the Ex3cu7or2 0ff1ce, how may I help you?” her verbs sounded a bit distorted, like some of them were spoken out of underwater. I could only understand that I used to know them, but meaning has been eluding me ever since. So I spoke:

“I am looking for my father - Matt, husband to my birthgiver Sally, recently appointed to work here” a lot of my dear verbs have slipped away my memory, but the lady looked confused and then understanding appeared on her face. She was wearing a strange, heavy necklace with some symbols carved into it.

When me looked around, myself noticed that everybody around had the same necklace.

“Ouh, I know where your father is my girl. Please, can you tell me your name before I will let you through?” more dreaded questions, but answer was so close, so me provided. <<I>> popped back to head of mine.

“I… Ash” all verbs that were possible for me to say. My face must have shown some desperation because the lady started taking some notes and smiled friendly, one could almost think it was caring smile, like she really wanted to help.

“Please, child, take this ring it will tell others you shouldn’t be spoken to and it will give you a sign if you’re taking the wrong turn, and the directions” she passed me a sliver ring and piece of paper with yet another map with symbols.

How could a conversation be made with him, even if me can find him? Tormenting thoughts started filling my head while passing corridor after corridor, stairs after stairs. The moment myself reached yet another x mark, my face was full of tears. My verbs slipped me and the mission was so important.

Knocking on the door, and voice coming back from behind:

“Please, come in. Who are you?” said deformed face to me. He looked very familiar, like part of the family, but I couldn’t attach any name to him. My face started crying yet again, trying to spell my name and purpose of the visit, but all I could say was:

“Help me… My… She’s dying at your home…” barely understanding myself even, slowly fading to quietness, lips of this body started being sealed and muted. Helpless feeling. Felt on the knees, face covered with hands.

Loneliness, being lost, confused.

Face with three nostrils shed shadow over the sight.

“Ash… I am so sorry, I left you and mom… I can help, I will help, but you won’t tell anyone anything about it, that’s the price for life”.

Nodding and more tears.

###

Two days later my mother started walking, singing, she looked better than ever. I know. I saw her standing on the street, when my father was taking me away to my new place to live in the Silent District. I couldn’t even say goodbye. I heard words, I heard singing, crying, but I couldn’t.

“There’s much to learn, Ash, for you, before you will be able to speak again, I promise I will take care of you” said Matt, my father.

Words are funny. They can hurt you more than ever, but the moment you forget them, you feel helpless. But knowing them all and not being able to speak feels crippling.

This would be a new chapter for me - a muted, speechless, but knowing-all entity, who can’t even spell her name to others.

I knew my future was going to be different… and very silent.