Falling Words
By Natasha Dalley
My wife starts leaving sticky notes in Greek on the wall, her toothbrush, on the fridge. She says they are translations of what they are attached to, but they could say: bastard, cuckold, this is my worst life.
What’s more is they are crowding out the ones she already posted last month in Japanese. I say that I don’t mind until I find one on the back side of my pillow, then in my car. On top of my yogurt. It could have read poison for all I know.
It’s difficult to translate Greek online. I eat the yogurt anyway. I was finished with all of the words when one fell into my coffee. I am only allowed one coffee per day. Doctor’s orders. The kids join in at first for fun with easy-ish words in French. They follow with angry words. Their friends are dying. They are gutted, they hate living here. They don’t want to leave the house.
They rage in Portuguese. Everyone stops speaking English. Everyone stops speaking. My French is intermediate. I try to reason with the kids in calming green-colored notes. They teach themselves Japanese. Now, everyone whispers but there is no point. I’m the only one who doesn’t know the words. One morning, I sit at the top of the stairs willing myself to slowly fall but that wouldn’t be enough for them. They blame me for this. When I get to the living room, the furniture is gone, the sticky notes are gone. They might be gone. It’s quiet, I go back to bed.
When they come back later, the walls are covered in black spray paint in every translation of shut up I could find. I don’t even care if they’re correct. My wife explained that they each needed an assigned color note so they would know who is talking. Someone could speak louder and more by the way they were arranged. It’s organized and maddening. They are ready to start again. They assigned me a color, too. I hire a language tutor. This is how we will heal.
THE END