I’ve been hurling myself at the concept my whole life, an unimpeachable pragma, a word very much like love. The laughter of ludus, hatsukoi coy but uncoiled, more amar. That achai longing and its painful encantar. Cuddled like katl wrapped in the flames of anurakti, ishq fuelling shaghaf in the searc for one’s priya. The ur well of grá feeding the flesh pits of pure kama, riotously gratifying rati and unapologetically unpainted anpu. So plaintively pinnariyok but unabashedly ungayok, it is to liefde forever, more mehr than man, wondering if wǔ èr líng says more than I love you.
I often think that I should come with a disclaimer, a funhouse mirror waiver stating the quivering nature of reality brought out by factual distortion in transitive communication. Objects may not be as adjective as they appear. Though that too bears its own linguistic issues when knowing that language is based on an inadequate expression of isolated experiences, mere slivers of a spectrum that should have their own indecipherable disclaimers: The things you think you know are true based on outside influence and you but both being bred to meet in isolation means certainty of understanding is always insecure.
Thick in a handsome way, Greg from customs makes forceful eye contact and doesn’t smile. His voice is a well trod boot. ‘Anything to declare?’ He says. I had a great time, I tell him. I’m not sure how I’m going to go back. ‘I can have you detained,’ he tells me. ‘Searched and otherwise inconvenienced, right?’ Worn leather pressed liberally. Sorry, I say, you don’t get much chance to be funny when nobody speaks your language. Greg chews the skin of his inner cheek and arrives at a grimace. ‘Seems to me you didn’t miss much being away.’
Kaori looks at me with abject innocence and something wistful I can’t pin down. I wish I knew how to talk to you, I tell her. I wish I could share something of myself with you and you with me. ‘Wakarimasen,’ she says, but I don’t understand. We listen to the cicadas chirrup for a while and I can’t help laughing at their joke. She smiles and pats my hand, a gestural lament that carries something I still can’t grasp. I want to speak, but Kaori presses a finger to my lips and opens her palm beneath the horizon.
A Few Short Words 