12-04-2019, 02:48 PM
So Night Follows Day Pt. 13
By T. MaskedWriter with Special Guest Author Susan Bailey
*****
"At the tender age of three, I was hooked to a machine,
just to keep my mouth from spouting junk. Ha!
Musta took me for a fool, cause they chucked me out of college,
cause the teacher knew I had the funk.
But tonight, I'm on the edge, better shut me in the fridge,
cause I'm burning up! YOW! I'm burning up.
With the vision in my brain, and the music in my veins,
and the dirty rhythm in my blood!"
-Thomas Dolby, "Hyperactive"
Ciao, Il mio nome è Susan. Sorry, let me try that again.
Hi, my name's Susan. There, that's better. Helen was confused about that a moment ago; everyone was. Now I guess I understand why. Apparently, I speak Italian now.
I'd been learning the language since we got back from San Finzione. Since I'm a citizen, I figure I'll be going back and forth once in a while. We've committed to going back twice in the next couple months, so I figured I'd get started after we recovered from the first trip.
My first Italian lesson had involved learning whether a pair of shoes was mine or not, whether they were red or not, how much they cost, and if they were on sale. After a week, I felt confident that If any questions about the ownership and/or price of a pair of red shoes ever came up, I would know exactly what to do!
Now, after the thing that Suzy-Q did, I can tell you that those shoes are cheap knockoffs of last year's model, that I can get the real thing for only five Euros more than his piece-of-shit hack counterfeiting job with the red paint that's already started to peel; at a store on the other side of the marketplace, and that it's not my fault that he was a bastard and that his mother was too busy gangbanging the local Calcio Team to teach him how to pull off a decent fucking penny-ante scam like this one!
Sorry. Did I mention that Helen's who I learned Italian from? Well, not really learned. It's complicated, and everyone, including me, just found out about it. We'd all been silent for what felt like a week since Troy pointed it out. I broke the silence.
"Ok." I said, trying to make a conscious effort to speak English for the first time I could remember. "Please tell me that I'm speaking English now, and my brain's Default didn't just switch to Italian."
"Yes, you are." Julie said as she came running down the stairs to me. She held up my head and looked into my eyes, then lifted my arms up and released them. "Say something else, please, but..." She turned to Troy. "Go get Dr. Tenente Maisson, Master." Troy nodded. Julie turned back. "Ok, hon, say a long sentence, please."
"Julie Equals is checking me for signs of Face drooping, Arm weakness, and Speech difficulties; the FAST test, which leads me to the conclusion that she is worried that I might be having a stroke; however, given that if there were any cause for concern, I would be able to read it on My Girlfriend's face by now, we need not worry about the Time aspect."
Julie smiled and stopped trying to examine me.
"Ok, good. Just, you know, there's stories about people having strokes or going into comas and waking up speaking languages they didn't know before."
"This wasn't like that Julie." I told her. "Helen's the one who's been unconscious both times this has happened, not me. At least I get it now; when she said Rita's show is 'Only funny if you know Italian,' she was telling us the name of the show: 'It's Only Funny If You Know Italian!'"
"Yeah," Helen chimed in. "It's something that we all need to talk about together. Speaking of which, Julie, I know you and Troy respect the military and ranks and so on, however, they're gonna be your neighbors for the week. Maisson's name is Paul. He's all right. First names will be a step toward undercover practice for them, and fuck do they need that. Like, I'm adding a whole day to the course about not using their native forms of address when posing as fucking Americans."
"And give them some accent training, Helena." Julie added. "With everything you know about languages, that just reflects poorly on you."
I'd been too distracted by everything else before this point to notice the smoke smell when I came in and just then registered that Helen was smoking in the house. It was probably because I wasn't used to seeing her without a cigarette in general that made me think of it. I must've gotten some look on my face about it, because Julie spoke up next.
By T. MaskedWriter with Special Guest Author Susan Bailey
*****
"At the tender age of three, I was hooked to a machine,
just to keep my mouth from spouting junk. Ha!
Musta took me for a fool, cause they chucked me out of college,
cause the teacher knew I had the funk.
But tonight, I'm on the edge, better shut me in the fridge,
cause I'm burning up! YOW! I'm burning up.
With the vision in my brain, and the music in my veins,
and the dirty rhythm in my blood!"
-Thomas Dolby, "Hyperactive"
Ciao, Il mio nome è Susan. Sorry, let me try that again.
Hi, my name's Susan. There, that's better. Helen was confused about that a moment ago; everyone was. Now I guess I understand why. Apparently, I speak Italian now.
I'd been learning the language since we got back from San Finzione. Since I'm a citizen, I figure I'll be going back and forth once in a while. We've committed to going back twice in the next couple months, so I figured I'd get started after we recovered from the first trip.
My first Italian lesson had involved learning whether a pair of shoes was mine or not, whether they were red or not, how much they cost, and if they were on sale. After a week, I felt confident that If any questions about the ownership and/or price of a pair of red shoes ever came up, I would know exactly what to do!
Now, after the thing that Suzy-Q did, I can tell you that those shoes are cheap knockoffs of last year's model, that I can get the real thing for only five Euros more than his piece-of-shit hack counterfeiting job with the red paint that's already started to peel; at a store on the other side of the marketplace, and that it's not my fault that he was a bastard and that his mother was too busy gangbanging the local Calcio Team to teach him how to pull off a decent fucking penny-ante scam like this one!
Sorry. Did I mention that Helen's who I learned Italian from? Well, not really learned. It's complicated, and everyone, including me, just found out about it. We'd all been silent for what felt like a week since Troy pointed it out. I broke the silence.
"Ok." I said, trying to make a conscious effort to speak English for the first time I could remember. "Please tell me that I'm speaking English now, and my brain's Default didn't just switch to Italian."
"Yes, you are." Julie said as she came running down the stairs to me. She held up my head and looked into my eyes, then lifted my arms up and released them. "Say something else, please, but..." She turned to Troy. "Go get Dr. Tenente Maisson, Master." Troy nodded. Julie turned back. "Ok, hon, say a long sentence, please."
"Julie Equals is checking me for signs of Face drooping, Arm weakness, and Speech difficulties; the FAST test, which leads me to the conclusion that she is worried that I might be having a stroke; however, given that if there were any cause for concern, I would be able to read it on My Girlfriend's face by now, we need not worry about the Time aspect."
Julie smiled and stopped trying to examine me.
"Ok, good. Just, you know, there's stories about people having strokes or going into comas and waking up speaking languages they didn't know before."
"This wasn't like that Julie." I told her. "Helen's the one who's been unconscious both times this has happened, not me. At least I get it now; when she said Rita's show is 'Only funny if you know Italian,' she was telling us the name of the show: 'It's Only Funny If You Know Italian!'"
"Yeah," Helen chimed in. "It's something that we all need to talk about together. Speaking of which, Julie, I know you and Troy respect the military and ranks and so on, however, they're gonna be your neighbors for the week. Maisson's name is Paul. He's all right. First names will be a step toward undercover practice for them, and fuck do they need that. Like, I'm adding a whole day to the course about not using their native forms of address when posing as fucking Americans."
"And give them some accent training, Helena." Julie added. "With everything you know about languages, that just reflects poorly on you."
I'd been too distracted by everything else before this point to notice the smoke smell when I came in and just then registered that Helen was smoking in the house. It was probably because I wasn't used to seeing her without a cigarette in general that made me think of it. I must've gotten some look on my face about it, because Julie spoke up next.
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