Where's the Bathroom?

“Bwat bre bou baying? Bi bannot bunderstand bou!” Of course Banthony couldn’t understand her, Zarah was not speaking Bibish. Where she comes from, no one does and no amount of frustrated and slightly sardonic Bibish would get him or her closer to thoughtful communication.

“Zhis zis zointless.” She turned to face the cell wall, crossed her arms and dropped her rump on the cement floor, trying to relax her furrowed brow. She hoped her cellmate pacing behind her could understand what that gesture meant: “Ze’re zoomed”. 

Banthony had understood and promptly responded with a gesture of his own, directed towards the back of her head: “Buck Bou” it meant. 

Banthony was experiencing a mild, yet growing panic attack. He had never been to jail before and had certainly never been executed before. He was, at that moment, meticulously thumbing through the pages of his relatively short life story, trying to figure out what he did to deserve such a fate as this. He was beginning to think the author had no idea what he was doing. He needed to figure this all out. And like most people trying to figure it all out while facing capital punishment, he was completely convinced of his innocence and needed some sort of an official to make this fact known to. He grabbed two bars, squeezed his face through the small gap in between and like a broken chew toy his head squeezed out a panicked “Bello?”. His voice echoed weakly through the jailhouse like wavering bells, “Bis banyone bout bhere? Bhere’s been bome bort bof ba berrible bistake!” 

No one answered. It was two in the morning. In the Coalition of Vowels, where the two foreigners sat in their cell, crime was kaput. It had been snuffed out when the military powerhouse nations of A and E formed a compulsory alliance with their peaceful, socialist neighbors I, O, and U. After the formation of the Coalition of Vowels, there was no point to committing crime for two reasons: one, you were given everything you needed to live a happy, healthy life and two, this is the important one, the umbrella consequence for any and all criminal activity was a bag over your head and a dozen bullets in your body. And since crime was so rare, the holding cells and police stations in the Coalition of Vowels were barely staffed, night shift even less so. This particular night, there was only one officer in the building. The other two had gotten the flu.

The crime of which Banthony and Zarah were to be put to death for, was simply because they were not Vowelman. The Coalition doesn’t like strangers.  

“Bello?” His voice echoed once more, annoying even the walls as it bounced through the place.

Banthony could hear a prison guard rouse from a nap, choking on his snores, followed by the jingle-jangle of a key loop keeping in rhythm with the guard’s approaching footsteps. 

“Zizzian” the word fell awkwardly from Banthony’s lips. Zarah’s head picked up only by a hair. It had been the only word she understood all night. “Bou bunderstand bhat bat bleast, bon’t bou?” She sunk, more gibberish. “Bhen bour buard briend bets bhere, bi bon’t bwan’t bo bear bany bof byour Zizzian binterjections!” As the jingle-jangle grew louder, Banthony lowered his voice to a soft whisper. “Bi book Vowel Tongue bin bollege, blet be bou bhe balking band bwe bust bight burvive bhe bight!” 

Zarah, unfortunately, had not learned any Bibish since their previous conversation five minutes prior and still could not understand the jittery man’s blabber. Fortunately for Banthony, Zarah had already made up her mind not to speak again until someone made some lick, any lick of sense.

“EEAT EEOU EEANT? EEI EEAS EELEEPING!” Zarah would be waiting for a while. 

A college education was not needed to understand their keeper was in no mood for a talk. To be fair, anything spoken in Vowel Tongue could lead the listener to believe the speaker was quite upset. Vowel Tongue is a crude language, spoken in shrieks and screams. 

And while Banthony had taken Vowel Tongue for one semester during his undergraduate education at Bale Buniversity, ten some-odd years ago while studying to become an otolaryngologist, he had done so because of the professor, a pretty linguist named Beatrice and not because of a desire to actually learn to speak the language. If asked to speak it by friends impressed by his claim to bilingualism, Banthony always said “where’s the bathroom” and/or “I like to eat apples'' simply because that is all he remembers. Subsequently, Banthony understood the guard just as much as Zarah did, that is to say not at all. 

Note: Bale Buniversity is not to be confused with the remarkably similar in name yet markedly more prestigious school, Yale University, which Banthony did not receive his degree from.

“EEI EEIKE EEO EEEAT EEAPPLES.” Banthony had hoped confidence would carry him through this situation. Whatever he said, it seemed to have pushed the guard further into a state of agitation. Banthony wondered why?

Note: While Banthony did remember the phrases “where's the bathroom?” and “I like to eat apples”, he had no passing idea of what they actually meant. He was very much like a parrot in this sense.

Banthony decided to try the second phrase. “EEAIR’S EEAH EEATHROOM?” His voice cracked with each syllable and worried the guard would begin to laugh. To his surprise, the Vowelman guard’s face relaxed as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed the ring of keys from his waist and slotted one into the cell door. Click! 

Zarah looked back. Banthony’s face lit up. He felt like he just performed a spell of some kind. The guard grabbed him by the arm and yanked him out of the cell. 

“EEUMBER EEONE? EEOR EEUMBER EEOO?” The Vowelman asked.

“EEYES EEYES, EEAIR’S EEAH EEATHROOM! EEAIR’S EEAH EEATHROOM!” Banthony kept shouting the magic phrase, giddy like a child, as he was carted off to the men’s restroom.

From where Zarah sat though, Banthony had just weaseled his way out of a death sentence and left her to eat it.

She stood up. Smelled her armpits. Gross. She felt like a monkey in a cage. She was a monkey (of sorts) in a cage quite literally at the moment, but she had felt like a monkey in a cage her whole life.

Zarah was under the impression, as are a lot of twenty-somethings, that she’s got shit-luck. It’s the shit-luck that redirected her plane to the Coalition of Vowels, it’s the shit-luck that was going to get her fired, and it's the shit-luck that lost her passport. It used to be that Zarah thought shit-luck was only temporary. It was an investment of sorts, earn enough shit-luck and eventually it’ll be cashed out for something extra lucky. Winning the lottery twice, finding 100 four-leaf clovers, becoming famous. But Zarah had just recently decided that was stupid.

You’re born with shit-luck, you die with shit-luck.

Zarah walked to the cell door. She watched as the two men walked down the hall and around the corner. Banthony was still screaming his magic words.

She squeezed her head through the gap between the bars, wished she was skinnier, wished she was free, wished she was dead. Her eyes drooped with the rest of her body. The key’s still in the door.

The key’s still in the door.

Zarah took back everything she just thought. The bank of shit-luck was still open and she was about to make an enormous withdrawal. 

She turned the key with the stillness of a surgeon and pushed the door open just enough to squeeze her body through. She needled her way down the hall. To her left was a painting depicting an execution by firing squad. To her right was a vase of fresh rhododendrons. Zarah did not like the flowers, they smelled sickly and spicy so she continued at increased speed down the corridor.  

Around the corner was the exit. Around the corner and on the right side wall was the men’s restroom. She needled on. She would’ve needled completely on by had the scene in the men’s restroom not been so bizarre. 

“EEO EEUMBER EEONE! EEO EEUMBER EEONE!” The Vowelman was screaming, much louder than his normal register, and he was pointing his previously holstered glock-19 at a sobbing, pantsless Banthony. He must’ve thought Banthony was trying to trick him. Policemen hate feeling tricked.

“EEAIR’S EEAH EATHROOM! EEAIR’S EEAH EEATH-EEATHROOM!” Banthony was trying his hardest to save himself with the magic words but to no avail. The men in the bathroom heard a giggle. They turned and saw Zarah. 

She froze. The Vowelman, in a state of mad panic, shot at her. The gun exploded in his face. 

The shit-bank was giving out loans for free that night.

Zarah peeked into the bathroom. The Vowelman lied dead on the floor. As she took a few steps in, she saw that Banthony was cowering in the corner, pants still around his ankles. 

“EEAIR’S EEAH EEATHROOM.” Zarah said.

Banthony raised his head only by a hair. It was the only thing he understood all night.