Two hundred years ago we were called demons, a hundred years ago, we were called witches, fifty years ago,we were called collectively schizophrenic, twenty five years ago, we were called communist experiments, fifteen years ago we were called insane…
we just call ourselves 'Talkers', but they call us Delvers.
Here is the lie, there are human beings and Delvers, Delvers are genetically gifted with the ability to peer into the patterns of the universe and speak the bits and pieces they find into reality.
Here is the truth. There is not a single difference between your average person and your average Delver genetically.
Simply put Delvers are human beings, that have at some point in their life, found themselves in sync with the world around them just enough so that, in so being, found a part of that world suddenly made a bit more sense, and found themselves trying to sound out a word or letter where there was none in their vicinity or vocabulary, and if they just so happen to say it even a bit correctly, any part of the universe that 'heard' it that cared to, would react.
Not that that's what the public likes to acknowledge, too stuck in the 'us vs them' to realize it's just another artificial difference cooked up to-
Sigh… calm down.
As for how I know this, I am Sam, and I am technically just a regular person.
See, you only 'become' a Delver when you speak out the words of the world, right? So if you never do that, you just remain as a 'regular' person.
But the thing is, it's really hard to do that when for some reason… the more I try to ignore the patterns, the more I see them
In everything
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Another day of my walking into the old employment office building another day of I pretending the spirals in the fluorescent lights above don't spell out 'expresevi' in a rough translation meaning 'artificial blaze'. I then walk to my employment official's office, I never learnt her name, but in the folds of her smile reads as 'herenrt talvute' which could mean 'eternal forgiveness' or 'sand ridden dictator' it's a bit of a toss up really…
As I get to the official's cubical I sit at the plastic and cloth cushened chair both read with the suffix 'sevi' which I have found is typically referring to artificial things.
In Her three piece suit coils the word 'mearverint', like a snake, it sometimes peaks out of the weave, haven't quite found what that means yet, but I am brought to attention at the snapping of her fingers, in so doing, the sharp bounds of a whispered 'thanqim fisz' which might mean 'burst winds' but could also mean 'sharp sound'- she snaps her fingers again and I finally focus on her deadpan green eyes, she's looking at me with that unimpressed look, like I'd forgotten something…
I try not to stare so as to not read the word of her eyes, people don't typically like it when I read the word in their eyes…
"Mr. Dighser, I see that your back, even when you said you would try your best with the last job." She says with a smile
"It wasn't up to code, there were too many violations to be ignored, I had to leave."
Her smile twitches, and the words I know to be form her lips come "really? Did I you report them? We need it on record so that we know to stop sending people there until the problems are fixed." She said in the voice he uses when she's dealing with people she doesn't like.
I nod at her to indicate that I have but my attention is drawn once to her brown hair as from it peaks out 'orlosevi' and I'm reminded a bit that her full head of hair is fake, not that big of a surprise, but she's talking now, she's saying something, and I'm pretty sure i replied in an appropriate way, but all I can think about is that the in the subtle screeching of her voice crows a soft 'provneb knoqvern fu mivionh' which I was having a hard time understanding…
which is when she decided to cough loudly to get my attention and put on the table three collections of paper -employment opportunities, risk, reward, details, and other such necessary information.- and she says "your going to need to get your act together Mr Dighser, i know you have what it takes to do what you need to, all you need to do is keep it together, ok?" Her words, supposed to be reassuring still made me feel a slight pain for a reason I wasn't able to Pearce.
I nodded at her before taking the middle one and going back to my car, I looked at the writing in the paper but as I did the ink warped in my view and all changed to a new 'paragraph', one that makes my eyes hurt just looking at, so I take out my phone and ask the virtual assistant to pull up the text to speech photography app I installed seeing as whenever I try to look at anything digital something like what happened with the ink happens there too, but instead of a sentence, it's like a million incomprehensible words the size of each inch of the screen.
Meaning, looking at pretty much anything digital gives me a migraine, so I just use the text to speech to read, since words on ink do something similar…
The employment opportunity I had taken with me was three pages long, it turned out to be an antique shop requesting a long term employee, 23.50 per week, paid once per week, requirements: detail oriented, careful, the owner needs a replacement before going on a leave of absence…
I am neither of those things, to my knowledge, I cannot be detail oriented because I basically can't read, and I tend to get lost in thought and distraction easily… I would also be the only person employed, meaning there would be no one there to guide me in how to care for the shop in the absence of the owner.
This is a bad suit for me. I was about to go back inside to get a different job but that would mean having to deal with the official.
I spoke the coordinates into my phones GPS, I might not be able to see the map but I am able to hear the assistant's voice to guide me.
After a not too stressful drive I make it to the antique shop.
The sign says 'Silver linings', and in the silver background of the words gleams 'yosined viltograt' which might mean 'sterling silver' but could also mean any other number of things… I make my way to the door, ignoring all of the cracks in the concrete that promise stability, or the winds that whisper of freedom.
I turn the brass handle of the door to the shop I might be working at, trying to peel my eyes from the reflection's rebounding word, I focus for a moment in the maybe, spruce? Wood door, and my eyes naturally glide to the nooks and knots, and it's only my opening of the door that has me moving on.
The older something is the more of a story it has to tell, and the more impossible that story is to ignore, I don't go near forests… or the older part of town, the stories there would drown me, which is probably a bad thing, that I'm here, seeing as this is a place of old things.
This is a bad idea, but I'm already in the lions den, and I can't go back even if I dearly wish I could now. Because the ashen oak flooring has me rooted to the ground, I can feel it trying to tell me a tale, trying to get through my shoes and socks…
within the fixed cracks of the porcelain plates on one of the standing tables glare at me with a countless words, none I can speak but I know I can say, and I know I'm so doing that the air I spoke into would itself shatter.
There are pots in the corner, for plant growth, they're cracks speak of a different world, one bit of the shattering but of steadfastness and maintenance.
In the ceiling fan's consisten whirring speaks of artificial winds, and it's blades of a constant motion. The same kind the very world cracks on about if one were to have the patience to listen.
In the splinters of a bench to the right sneer the makings of hard work and determination, this place is a treasure trove for Delvers, the furniture alone has some examples of the words they might want in their 'arsenal'
There are so many voices, so many ways my eyes slide in just the right way to see what is underneath, even in the silverware's reflection lurks a path talking of tarnish and repair, let alone the silver itself.
The old man behind the counter, both have so, so much story to them, this man has seen much, but he is near the end of his life, most of the words that used to be there have vacated, leaving behind the wrinkles and aches they layed their rest inside.
My throat doesn't want to open, but I place the information document on the table, one that yearns to share the lore it holds.
But my eyes keep on the person infront of me.
He has seemingly fallen asleep in the chair he is sitting on, so I press on the bell on the rather cluttered table, the bell chimes in with feeling of a full life of ringing.
And he opens his eyes, startled, and by god, in his eyes lay paragraph after paragraph, I was mistaken, this man is no where near the end of his life, he has not been abandoned by the living language, it spins from pupil to iris.
The words insert themselves into my brain just like all of the others, at every second, more fill my mind.
'Eldihejrb benilex fulme grutke varenmil hutail cuinfels keidkekh thiosaen bael ofwainto heeontok wiqbhkown, fhroun knmin hino knost. Feldtent treniker senburten olernblih jeonojh cocher. Qerilh vezanmackh ternackt ber vo caelh'
Still reelling from the information overload of that whole mess, I accept that I don't have the time to decipher the paragraph and try to come back to reality, he said something, what did he say..?
"Sorry could you r-repeat that?" I say out, stuttering a bit due to the overwhelming information being constantly pushed into my head… I am starting to get a headache.
"I just asked what chyer starin' at." At this I flinch and then blink and look away, his voice has even more wisdom in it's gravel. Even more information pushing it's way into my mind, the migraine would have been paralyzing, and if this was the first time I had been forced to under such I would have been, it was paralyzing, the first time I talked to an old person.
Now it just hurts…
Either way I go to respond, but he cuts me off saying "how much?" I look at him, a bit confused.
He reiterates with "how much of the truth can you see?" I was a bit shocked, i though I was being at least a bit subtle…
"Uhh, don't, really know what your talking about…" I say, not looking him in the eyes. But he scoffs and says.
"Boy, y'eave already looked me 'n tha eyes, I know ya saw, this ain't a place o' judgement, 'specially not get Talkins," as he said this, he crossed his arms, which had my eyes slipping between the seams of it and finding the words, it's become practically unconscious, to find them, find as many as I can…
I mutter out a "lotta letters, 've never seen so many in one place." It was a lie, but talkers typically had a heard time parsing through the day to day, but could see more of the letters in places like this, simply because there were more in one place.
A talker who could recite a word, let alone a sentence, or a paragraph. Are increasingly rare these days.
He said something else, I hope my response was appropriate but he nodded and started to explain something, this is when I retuned back into the conversation "ok yer hired, all ya need ta do is man the register an' restock tha shelves, jus' if some'n comes by." I nodded, that seems easy.
"Ahh, and o' course yah gotta clean tha floors daily 'n dust off tha ol' relics."
That sounds a bit more difficult but still, do able.
I nod at him again, and he eyes me and says "not much of a talker for a Talker ey? Ha! 'M jus pokin yer rib! Alright, I'll be off, 'f ya need some guidance, 've got a pamphlet on the table!" And he points at a plastic pamphlet on the counter in front of me.
In the corner of my eye I catch a coat slithering off the rack, he had whispered a word associated with that coat, that brought it to his grasp.
But he didn't really speak, because you can't really speak the language of the universe, since there aren't really words, I only quantify them into words to hold onto at least a little bit of my sense of self.
It is closer to enacting the verbal version of a physical concept, it just so happens that if that thing likes you, or is just a bit bored, it will react.
Some things have their truths emparted through sound waves, others prefer to wear them on their sleeves. But you can't really have a conversation with them, without yawing their 'language' and even then, most things physical in nature are to our perspective, slow to respond, there is a kettle, on a mini shelf on a wall here, in the crack of its handle it has just responded to something someone told it, about, three years ago? Living things are more prone to reasonably fast conversation.
It gets confusing, and the complications really don't help with the headache, so I take out my migraine medication 'adzenophil' I think my doctor said it's name was it uses ink, ink likes to be really obvious with its messages, but in so doing obscures to that person reading what it was written down to say, I once tried to translate the message the ink always put down, but it ended up being a poem about the end of times, and how the world will be drowned in thirteen colored lights and fourty two beetles, and the text to spearhead revealed that the thing I was translating actually was a letter from my Mom asking me to come home for thanksgiving, she sent the letter because I wasn't picking up the phone.
And this isn't something that's changed, it's always the same poem. About the same thing. And never even a hint about the original text.
So that's why I just use the the TTS.
I make my way to the seat he was at, and take the seat for myself. Taking care not to look at it, but my hands still caressed the patterns, and just like that, the word invaded my mind anyway. 'Encrat revinuh tul krail botrane' or what could have been 'faux fur on cotton' or maybe something like- I'm doing it again…
I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am infact, a regular person, entirely sane and whole of mind, who doesn't see anything other than reality in the exact way everyone else sees it, and pop two of the headache pills in my mouth. It takes a while, but the constant crashing and tearing and whining and whirring and screeching and ringing becomes more tolerable, and I open my eyes, that inhad forgotten I had closed, and kept my eyes on the exit for the rest of my new job's shift, it was nine hours long.
No one entered.
I clocked out and went home after cleaning up the shop.
The thought strikes me, 'he never said how long he would be gone…'
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