August 27 – Signals

My hands lie still on the keys in front of me. I only notice this because, in staring at empty space, my vision of them has doubled. My eyelids feel dry and ponderous, like the pages of an ancient and ridiculously oversized tome. One of those grumpy tomes that always tries to snap shut at entirely the wrong moment, such as when you have your nose buried in it. I rub my eyes, and they even feel papery. I think I have been working too long. Unfortunately, I can’t leave just yet. For my country I must be vigilant, and monitor the various signals sent out by our great nation’s enemies, and even her allies. For the lines between the two are blurred at best. At worst, the line has long ago gotten fed up with being pushed around and walked all over, and has packed its bags and skedaddled for a nice quiet cabin in the woods. I hear a ping from my equipment, so I drag my bookish eyes to the display screen. Encrypted, of course, but sometimes the codes the use are so weak they may as well just be speaking in pig-Latin. Ix-nay on-ay e-thay omb-bay. It’s laughable, really. Laughable, in that when I read them I laugh out loud, which often startles Mandy.

Mandy is the resident linguist, fluent in at least five languages. She sits at the table across from me, and usually has notebooks piled up around her. Sometimes, when she’s concentrating, she doodles daisies in the margins. Sometimes, in our breaks, she’ll teach me words in Russian, or Japanese, or Spanish. She’s very encouraging, even when I get things wrong, and she says I have a good ear for the pronunciation. I think it would make more sense to say I have a good tongue for it, but somehow I never get around to saying it to her. She always smiles when I laugh, even when it startles her. She says it’s nice. I like her smile, it’s big and toothy, and makes her look radiant. Somehow I can never say that to her either. She’s looking at me, with a question on her face. Not literally, of course, because her face is quite well formed and not at all reminiscent of a question mark. I realise that I’ve been staring at her for the past minute, and I think I go very red in the face. I also look away, but that doesn’t seem to make the situation any better. When I look back she’s still smiling.

At half past one we both stand and stretch, in a method quite unlike the way cats do it, and head to the cafeteria. Mandy says it’s my turn to teach her something, so I tell her I’ll teach her a new language. She picks it up very quickly, and we are soon spouting all sorts of nonsense Latin at each other. Her name becomes Andy-May, which could very well be the name of a gentleman, and when I tell her this she says that my name in pig-Latin is Ris-Kay, and is terribly amused. I tell her that if I was truly like my namesake, I would tell her how beautiful she is, especially when she smiles, and I would sweep her off her feet to dinner and dance the night away with her, and henceforth never let her go, because I think there is no-one else I would ever want to see across the table from me, at work or at home or anywhere.

And once I’ve caught my breath, she takes my hand, and asks me what I’m waiting for.