Writing inspired by the following SWC prompts:

The Cliché

“Oh, that’s what you mean! Actually, you pronounce it like this: ______.” Use this line in a story or a poem and play with the language backgrounds of the characters. Did someone mispronounce something in English or in another language?

The Last Thing on the Menu

by Martina Pranic

At noon, the bell had just rung for lunch. From every corner of the makeshift school premises, young learners streamed into the grand old pub that served as a dining hall, suffused as always with the redolence of spilt beer, damp cutlery and steaming gravy. It was the final day of the awkwardly titled “Language Labyrinth Summer Symposium”. A camp of sorts, it was held every year in a different, middle-of-nowhere coastal village selected for the honour through a highly competitive lottery. Hosting it granted its inhabitants the vexatious privilege to welcome – that is, accommodate, feed and entertain – scores of young foreigners who arrived from nearby airports and train stations, their aspirations set upon grasping the purported finesse and functionality of the great lingua franca. Over the course of three weeks, their presence noticeably altered the village, sometimes with outcomes less than desirable. But even those who typically opposed an influx of bewildered visitors from Abroad had to concede that, indirectly, when their parents also stayed in the village – which happened often – they were quite good for business.
Little Mischa’s third foray into this linguistic Olympics had so far proved no better or worse than his first two. Clad in one of the three new outfits, which were anxiously picked out for him by Mother and finally losing some of their store-bought stiffness, Mischa mostly kept to himself. He was pleased to be there, though, in his own way. Mother’s own grandmother had proudly hailed from the very Land of the Free, even though she herself never set foot there nor had she picked up more than a few words of the language. But Mischa would. He was hardly bothered by his dopey detachment – it was simply how he, and his family, naturally were. Father, Mother and Mischa. Two of them dentists, the third destined and glad to one day pursue the same path. By degrees, they all adopted this relatively dazed, inscrutable smile, their eyes appearing vacant and their eyebrows slanting downwards. This lent them a meek, stolid appearance as they enjoyed solitude as much as each other’s company, with relatively little need for words. Mischa brought this demeanour with him wherever he went, and the summer course – of course – was no different.
In the daily confines of the classroom, he perspired and persevered. Contorting his mouth to hiss and enunciate the windy vowels and sinuous consonants demanded by the language, he copied it all duly, trying to make his efforts worthwhile and commit every detail to memory. Make his parents proud. Amidst the cacophony of rolling Rs and elusive Ts that danced upon their foreign little tongues, children more outgoing than Mischa bubbled with companionship and effortless laughter. Long hours each morning, they all navigated the quagmire of grammar and syntax in their own way, sinking into the treacherous terrain of unfamiliar phonemes and elusive grammar rules to then finally embrace the freedom of the lunch hour. Mischa too looked forward to it, albeit for different reasons than most. While everyone else eagerly awaited the break from learning, he harboured a secret hope for a culinary revelation amidst the mundane school provisions. At home during mealtimes, his palate was treated to a new curious complexity each day, and every dish afforded a symphony of taste. As aloof as his parents might have been in all other areas of life, food for them transcended mere sustenance; it was an art form. Mother could transform the humblest of ingredients, like a boiled egg, into a culinary marvel bursting with flavours, while Father tackled tender fish and succulent meats with the finesse of a maestro. Unfortunately, nothing even remotely similar happened at the summer course. But undeterred by past disappointments, Mischa persisted in his quest for gastronomic enlightenment.
High above the lunch queue, a blackboard loomed, its surface filled with chalked rows of meals and ingredients. Meals and ingredients. Mischa’s gaze drifted over the familiar array of simple, bland dishes that had sustained him for countless meals in the past, yet failed to satisfy his discerning taste buds. He had already sampled all the savourless meat pies, the tepid vegetable concoctions, the bland broths – each as uninspiring and conventional as the language they were presented in was vibrant and smooth. He sampled all of it, that is, except for the one last thing that appeared on all three blackboards of the three summer courses he attended. And today, as he stood in the slow-moving queue of chattering, hungry students, Mischa’s gaze drifted to something peculiar in the cutlery tray. There, many upside-down little Mischas stared back at him, captured in the gleaming spoons. They seemed to be egging him on. With newfound determination, he decided to be bold. He would conquer that final frontier of the lunch land and order the tantalising final thing on the menu, a dish with an unpronounceable, formidable name that had eluded him for so long. He had studied so hard and it was the last day, after all. What could possibly go wrong?
A single word etched in bold letters at the very bottom of the board beckoned him like a respite from blandness. Peanuts, sesame and various items of seafood were listed among the ingredients. And those were just the ones he recognised. It had to be a dish unlike any other, a complex culinary enigma waiting to be unravelled. Finally, it was his turn to order.
“Next!” the friendly, red-faced kitchen lady bellowed.
“Um, hal-lo…” Mischa began.
“Hello, love. What’s it going to be?”
This was not a time for pleasantries, Mischa was well aware. Best get on with it.
“Um… Please: Alle-alle…. genus?” he squeezed out, the cadences of his mother tongue poking conspicuously from underneath his pronunciation, one shaky index finger pointing to the bottom of the board.
“Come again, love?” Mischa noticed puzzlement spread over the kitchen lady’s now crimson face.
“All – uuuh – jens?” he tried again. Perhaps that “all” at the beginning was the syllable that encompassed every possible flavour?
“You will have to say that again, sweetie”, the kitchen lady was relentless. Friendly, yes, but she refused to understand him.
“Hey, what are you…” a voice came from behind him. It was one of Mischa’s garrulous compatriots, the one who would never find himself in a situation such as this. “It’s allergens you’re trying to order, mate. Allergens!”
Laughter roared all around him and seemingly shook the dining hall. It was Mischa’s turn now to go all red in the face. As he stood there, surrounded by the echoes of a thousand voices, he could only wish he was back home where the food was delicious and the language rigid and bland.
He ordered bangers and mash.