Monolingual

Author’s Note: Due to the story being published on an English website, there will be no foreign languages spoken in this story, however, because of its nature, please take in consideration that the character’s thoughts are meant to be in another language, hence the title.

Judgment was my weakness point. It is my weakness point. It’ll always be my weakness point. Forever. No one likes it, yet everyone seems so ready to give it for free, as if it’s an ugly weight they carry around and want to get rid of.

And in educational facilities, perhaps like the millions of schools and universities and colleges around the world, judgment is that chalky, empty smell around the hallways. People seldom notice it, because if it’s permeating from you, you become somehow immune to it. Not entirely, as those teen movies suggest, when that popular girl turns out to have mental health issues, but that’s part of the “sympathise with the antagonist” campaign.

Here I was, in class, the teacher’s lecture slipping through my mind without registering a single useful word in my head except “is”, “was”, “and”, and “but”. The rest sounds either Chinese or Hieroglyphic, if we knew what it sounded like in real life. To both my right and my left were students of my same age, except that it felt as if they were far more mature and well developed than I was, because they actually understood what Mr. Blake has been milling about since morning.

One girl from the other side of class noticed my looking around and smiled what she must thought was a reassuring smile, but I was only frightened because of how visible my distress was. Hence, I shrunk my shoulders in an attempt to collapse into myself, and hide inside my own feelings until class was dismissed. 

As I pushed my way out of the overcrowded room of people who were making an active job out of making me uncomfortable, the same mop of brown hair that had smiled at me in class called out to me.

“Riya!”

I almost didn’t turn around to face her, it was too humiliating to have to explain my situation to everyone I met, and I always wished I’d be left alone. Regardless of how I felt, I turned around, plastered the nicest smile I could muster and walked to her.

She looked pleased that I had decided not to ignore her –had she known that already? – and extended a hand for mine to shake. I only heard her faintly say that she was called “I’m Evelyn, you can call me Ev.”

I wasn’t focused on that. I was focused on how our skins contrasted when our hands shook, and that reality was just starting to sink in about my life for the next three years, at least. Then my other worries piled up; I had Algebra in less than two minutes, my locker was at the far end of this school, and worse, Evelyn was staring at me and waiting for my response.

“Hey, um…you can hear me, right?” Her face scrunched up into worry, and was descending into mild shock when my brain registered that “hear” was related to the ear and maybe she was asking me if I could hear her. I nodded furiously, afraid to lead her to think I was deaf, when I was just simply monolingual in an all-white, all-English high school. Not so bad, “right”?

I wanted to tell her to help me, I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t even stick a couple of English words together to form a rational sentence like, “Where is room 302?”. However, I stood idiotically in front of her, frequently smiling until she backed away a little and motioned to a classroom at the far end of the hall. I nodded, silently wishing I could at least tell her “Good luck.”

As soon as she was out of sight, I speed-walked to my Algebra class and entered about one minute late. Luckily, numbers were almost constant everywhere in the world, and I learned all the numbers up to a hundred something and most of the mathematical symbols in our curriculum simply from the teacher’s narration of what she was writing on the chalk board. I loved algebra. It was one of the few things that stayed the same when I moved, and there was nothing as beautiful to me as seeing a few solid rocks to cling onto in spite of the current pushing me somewhere I wasn’t ready to go.

I won’t blame my parents for any of this. They told me I’d be fluently speaking English in about four months, and they told me not to worry, so I tried not to worry in front of them. They had a lot of things to worry about themselves, and didn’t need me bouncing on their heads just because I wanted to say things to people.

It’s like being in isolation, in public. It’s why they call it the “Language Barrier”.

“Ms. Riya, please solve this following question.” Mrs. Dub-something pointed to the board, forcing me out of the peaceful place in my head and into the scary and unpredictable world so many people seemed ready to pummel themselves into with no safety net underneath them. I reluctantly rose up, keeping my eyes fixed in front of me to avoid unwanted stress from present gazers.

“Please think about it while I write another question.” She turned from me and started writing again. Did she want me to sit down? Was I done? Was I going to answer both? Why was everyone staring? What was happening?

Again, I put a halt to my train of thought as my mind worked to solve that one. I scribbled a few drafts on a blank sheet of paper and placed it on the teacher’s desk. She studied it with some confusion as to why I didn’t answer orally, but she smiled warmly at me and motioned me down.

To the rest of the class, she said, “Does anyone know why she didn’t answer orally? Is she deaf?”

I didn’t know what was going on, again. What did “orally” and “deaf” mean? Did they have something to do with me?

Finally, some guy in the back of the class, Derek, I think, suggested something, “I think she has either a learning disability or some linguistic issue. No idea, though.” Mrs. Dub seemed satisfied, as she said “Okay, let’s get back to work.”

I thought about what they said. It wasn’t similar to anything I’ve ever heard in my language, but I’ve heard them often, and I wished for the millionth time that day that I knew what was happening all around me.

Algebra class was dismissed as well, soon enough, and as I predicted, Mrs. Dobson –I learned later–, wanted to talk to me, as if I was lying about anything and would cave in under her pressure for me to talk. It was almost like telling a chicken to cook itself.

I shook my head and nodded when times felt right, but most of the time I had no idea what were the words she was always repeating and why they seemed so important to her. She finally let me off the hook, and I had a free period so I wasn’t upset, but then I realized I missed the chance to sit with Evelyn in silence again.

I walked around the almost vacant halls, maybe to sit outside in the yard, but most persistently looking for her. I almost gave up hope and opened the yard’s door at the end of the hall when the same voice called me.

“Riya!”

This time I didn’t hesitate to twist back to face her. This time I was the first to smile. And she was holding her phone, looking as excited as ever. She grabbed my hand and dragged me to the yard. I laughed a little, and felt like she was going to show me something.

“Race you to that park bench!” She pointed to a sturdy park bench and started running. I ran after her intuitively, and my years at track paid off because I was there first despite her head start.

She chuckled lightly as she gasped for breath, then, as if having forgotten about it, grabbed her phone out of her pocket and swiped across her apps until she opened one which I have never seen before.

She fiddled with some settings, then asked a one-word question that put everything into focus. “Hindu?”

I widened my eyes as I realized what might have been going on, and beamed gleefully, nodding my head so hard my ponytail kept bouncing. She winked at me, then placed her phone between us on the bench.

Evelyn tapped a mic button and started saying, “You’re really fast at running. How is that?”

The app buffered for about two seconds, then on the other end came out Hindu words that made sense to me. An involuntary grin was spread wide across my cheeks as I responded. What came out was, “I used to go to track back home. I was there for about three years.”

She let out a thoughtful “Hm...” and almost said something but I beat her to it.

“Can you teach me some English?”

Her response was simple. “Yes.”

We spent the rest of free period listening to a metallic voice designed to imitate a woman’s reciting some nouns and verbs I had never known of. In my next class, History, I raised my hand and answered two questions.