My Diary

2002-11-23

More language lessons today.

Oh god, language lessons. Yesterday was fun. Today was really hard work. Green came in at her usual time and immediately started work on, of all things, tenses...

"One, two, three: days. One day, you not here. Two day, you come. Three day, you leave."

Pause.

"Is one. At two day, you come. Say."

"I will come tomorrow."

"Is one. At three day, you leave. Say."

"I will leave the day after tomorrow."

"Is one. At one day, you not here. Say."

"I am not here today."

"Is three. At one day, you not here. Say."

"The day before tomorrow, I was not here."

"Is three. At two day, you come. Say."

"Yesterday, I came."

And so on. Of course, it took me about half an hour to work out what it was she was getting at first.

All day, Green sat in the pool, with the temperature turned way down, and constantly demanded answers of me. All day, I sat, stood, paced up and down, stared out the window, and tried to answer them as I see fit. I completely lost track of any kind of overall thread: I just tried to understand what Green was trying to say now, and respond.

But it worked. Green was getting information, and using it. She was asking questions to fill in the gaps in her knowledge, methodically working from one topic to another, diverting here to explore irregular verbs, diverting again to try and determine the difference between perfect and imperfect tenses, going back to the original topic when the subject was exhausted ---- it was, quite literally, inhuman. She had a perfect memory and a perfect ear and, apparently, a perfect attention span. She was acquiring a working knowledge of basic English in two days.

And it was working. The evening of the previous day, she was using verbs and nouns randomly strung together. By lunchtime, she was using simple but mostly correct clauses. By the evening, she was using subordinate and dependent clauses, basic tenses, the occasional preposition, and we were really talking.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance. As the suns descended into the sea outside my window, lighting up the water with twin streaks of gold and crimson, and I got up to turn the lights on, I suddenly realised that Green looked like hell. She was lying limply on her side, eyes closed, shaking slightly, and drooling. But that distinctive voice was emerging from somewhere inside her skull, unchanged and as clear as ever. I was hoarse.

"...statement where clause two is true if clause one is true, and clause one is not true..."

"Green," I said. "Stop."

She opened her eyes and blinked at me in surprise. Those beautiful black eyes were bloodshot. Seeing as they were all pupil, that meant she must have been seeing me through a red haze. Yes, red blood.

"You're tired. I'm tired. I have to eat and sleep. We can continue tomorrow."

"There is not time. We can continue today..." she trailed off, blinked again, and then said simply, "I am tired."

"Where's Black?"

"Apartment."

I took a step towards the door, and stopped. "I can't open your door."

"Door?"

"Your apartment door. To get Black. You need help."

"I need sleep. More tired."

"Say again?"

"More tired than I think."

And she closed here eyes, stopped shivering and sagged.

I had a brief, momentary vision of exactly what Black would do to me if his mate died in my apartment, before I saw her torso moving. Needless to say, I knelt down and listened carefully until I was sure she was breathing. She'd just passed out. That mental feat of skill had obviously had quite a price.

But what was I going to do with her now? I certainly couldn't lift her, and besides, I didn't want to wake her. I suspected I needed to tell Black, but Black was likely to be in their apartment and I hadn't worked out where the doorbells were.

About the only thing I could do was to dim the lights and hope she would wake up.

A couple of hours later the doorbell rang. I let an extremely angry Black in, who heaved his way over to Green, rattling furiously at both of us. Green became semi-conscious, said something blurred to Black in Sealin, and then apparently passed out again. Black abruptly stopped being angry, and I found out what a worried sealin looks like.

Unfortunately, damn it, I can't talk to Black. I want to know how Green is, and I can't ask. They're currently up in my apartment, curled up together and asleep in my bathing pool; I'm dictating this down in the foyer to avoid disturbing them.

I hope she'll be all right tomorrow.

And now I need to go to bed.

I wonder if Black snores?

[transmit]