--uhura--
the art of language holds the human race together
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Nyota loved how the women at the park spoke in Polish.
Polish was nearly a dead language these days, but these women--old, maybe eighty or ninety--continued in the strange tongue. It continuously baffled Nyota as to why someone would go to the trouble of learning a language no one spoke. Maybe because they knew no one would understand them.
While Nyota played in the rare patch of grass, placed in the center of the park like a display of what used to be, she listened intently to the women, trying--trying so hard--to make sense of what they were saying, the rapid chatter of foreign tongue that had constantly illuded her since her first visit to the park. Tried, tried so hard.
"Josef, wy poznajecie jak on jest z taką kotką jego," they would say, "Spędza większa ilość (bardziej; więcej) czas (obliczać) z tym potem jego dziecci."
She didn't like not knowing what people were saying.
One morning, for no reason in particular, she woke up early and went to the park, knowing the women would be there (she often doubted they had homes, they were at the park so often)
When she arrived, greeted by the eerily silent landscape, all she saw were their three humped figures on a bench. They were not speaking.
One suddenly hunched over, so quickly Nyota could hardly tell what it was. She made a strangled sort of noise, like she were being choked, and the other women started squealing.
"Alina, co jest nieprawidłowy? Oh! Co jest nieprawidłowo?" one yelled, with white hair and overlapping skin. Nyota could see their eyes, panicked and welling with tears, as they sat up from the bench and began shaking their companion. One started fumbling with her purse. "Gdzie jej leczyć? JA nie może znajdować jej leczyć!"
The one with white hair spotted Nyota as she sat her friend down in her spot on the bench. Her eyes widened further, and she began shouting at me in frantic Polish. "Wy, dziewczyna! Udają się dzwonek doktor! Udają się otrzymują pomoc! Ona potrzebuje pomocy!"
She started running up to them, desperatly trying to sort out the spatting of words. The two started shrieking at Nyota, madly thrashing at their friend's back. Nyota saw the tears glistening on their cheeks. "Pomagają jej!" they shouted, "Otrzymują pomoc, was odurzona dziewczyna! Pomoc!"
Nyota started crying too, shifitng on her heels and breathing heavily as the old women convulsed and the two others screamed at her.
"I don't know what your saying," she sobbed helplessly, her voice small and pathetic, hardly rival to the mad shrieking of the women.
She should run for help, that much was obvious. But the park was rather isolated, acres of bare land without a building for at least two miles. Running would do no good.
She realised, numbly, that she had jogged right up to them. Even though they were small and frail, they still towered over Nyota with a fragile fury. The one with white hair looked at her as though she were poisen as she still riftled through her purse, looking for something something something. It was quite possible she was cursing, though Nyota wouldn't know.
"Ona nie oddycha! Oh, Irine! Ona nie oddycha!"
The women stopped thrashing, stopped convusling and staring wide eyed at the sky. Just stopped. Still, silent, and the other two followed. All was still.
All
was
silent.
"Oh," Nyota whispered, staring at the ashen face, "Oh, no."
The women, the two still standing, looked stricken, looked horrified, looked as though they wouild fall over themselves. The white haired one muttered to her, not looking at Nyota but still seemed to be speaking to her. "Odurzona dziewczyna," she whispered. "Odurzona, odurzona dziewczyna..."
Nyota started crying silently, knowing that the women was dead and it was her fault and the women hated her hated her hated her. She still couldn't understand, couldn't understand these simple syllables, these simple words and an old women had died because she was so foolishly stupid.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Sorry...I'm sorry..."
"Odurzona dziewczyna," the other said, falling to her knees and crying.
Nyota walked home and went online to learn Polish.
A/N ....