My sister, aptly blogging at @QuilledSister, writes short stories on her blog. Read her stories! She is a good fiction writer. I am not. But sometimes I get inspired to write a response. This is one of them.
Original Story: Gifted
My Story
I try to make these stand-alone, but today’s story won’t make sense if you don’t read the original first.
BE NOT AFRAID, I said in my gentlest voice.
“HOLY FUCK!”
BE NOT AFRAID, STEVEN WINTERS. I began my litany again, three hundred and fifteenth time today. FOR WE COME WITH—
“HOLY. FUCK. WHAT THE HELL.”
Not Hell, little guy. Come on, just let me finish and you can freak out later. They told me this group was skittish, so I had decided to include the name up front, so they would know I was friendly. If I were mean, I would say, “Be not afraid, insignificant bug!” But I’m nice.
I’m on a mission from God.
STEVEN WINTERS, WE COME TO YOU WITH A—
“OH MY GOD. SWEET JESUS.”
Closer, Steve, but I really need to tell you something, and I have a lot more visits to make today. The days of arks are over, but we still need you to go to the mountains.
I looked around. “Use your environment to your advantage,” they had told me. Burning bush, ladder to heaven, star in the sky, but this was a suburban back yard, which means there must be a… yes!
Back to the human, who seemed to have noticed my eyes glancing about. I hope he didn’t think I was irritated at him for interrupting. Although, frankly, Steve…
It took a few more false starts. “AM I DEAD?” he yelled, dancing back and forth over the near edge of sanity, waving his tongs as if he were conducting an orchestra at an asylum. “HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK?”
Actually, the surprising answer to that question is “one.” I speak proto-Babelish, a Semitic ancestor of the Sumerian/Hebrew/Akkadian family. Some call it the “language of Heaven,” but it’s more properly the “language of Eden.” Let’s not get into the “languages” “they” “speak” “in” Heaven. Steve’s not ready for me, and you’re not ready for theolinguistics.
If you could hear it, proto-Babelish is a pretty harsh language, full of guttural noises and glottal stops and also these absolutely glorious vowels that just go on forever. Makes it a perfect worship language. Obviously.
But you can’t hear it, because something about Created beings’ brains just ignores the sounds entirely. You hear noises—yes, I shake the air when I speak, just like you—but your brain interprets them in whatever language you’re most comfortable in, and you somehow ignore the dissonance of your ears and your eyes and your brain.
You’re good at that.
My best guess is that your brain somehow “remembers” proto-Babelish, but the Adamic corruption of the material world has destroyed your conscious ability to process it. So when you hear me speak, your brain kind of panics and retreats to its most primitive responses. Which is where the language of Eden is hiding in the first place, so what was lost gets found, and those with ears can hear. He has a weird sense of humor about these things.
Anyway, while we’ve been talking, I’ve been working on Steve and his gibbering not-madness-yet, and he’s been frantically cycling through a litany of half-remembered Sunday school lessons.
He’s about to land on an important one that happily coincides with both his upbringing and his current location, and if I’m lucky, the ancient ritual will calm him down so I can give him my message.
Ah, there it is.
YES, STEVEN WINTERS. WE WOULD LOVE A TUNA STEAK.
