The prestigious university’s Emeritus Professor of English Studies sat at his desk.
He sat marking English papers when, quite suddenly he sat upright, aware of movement behind him. Had he not had a strong constitution he would probably have had a heart attack and died where he sat. Despite this, he watched as the unexpected visitor walked around the end of his large desk and settle into the chair opposite. The stranger smiled reassuringly and raised his hand.
“It’s perfectly alright professor, I mean you no harm.”
The professor, visibly shaken, went to say something.
“It is as I say,” said the visitor, “I wish you no harm.”
“Who are you?” blurted the stunned professor, “How did you get in here?”
“Ooh! I don’t know, I just wondered if you’d like to think outside of the box for a short while.”
“The box?”
“Yes, the box. Languages do you see?”
“Yes, but…”
“Outside of your native tongue I believe you speak seven others fluently,” he paused, “and a few more, less so.”
The professor looked surprised. “How could you know that?”
“As to what I know, let me see.”
The visitor pondered.
“It wouldn’t be at all difficult for anybody to tell you that you live at number seven Brierley Close, are married with three children, two boys and a girl, that you are sixty-eight years old , have a sister living in Paris, that a year ago you stopped playing squash.”
The professor went to speak.
“The fact,” he continued, “that you’ve had trouble sleeping of late, owing to a local dog barking through the night; the fact that I know you were engaged in a most unpleasant argument during your last visit to your podiatrist, that you recently lost a button from your shirt cuff, or that only yesterday you thought it would be nice to remove your neat, goatee beard when you retire… something you haven’t mention to anybody, as yet.”
The professor sat with his mouth hanging slightly open, staring blindly at the man across the desk, who went on, “I believe I’ve established my credentials to your satisfaction?”
The professor nodded slowly.
“I’m only here to talk to you about languages. I just thought you’d be interested to know what was happening elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Yes. The planet I come from, for instance,” he said, in a matter of fact way, “is not that dissimilar to your own.” He sat back, taking on a more relaxed posture. He waved his hand back and forth, as he said, “About the same size, several land masses, lots of little islands, lots of water , suns, moons, stars… you name it…”
He smiled broadly.
“However, we developed in a different way, do you see? To be sure, we are way, way more advanced than you are here, but nevertheless, our history, our coming together as nations if you will…”
The professor interrupted momentarily, by repeating in a low voice, “The coming together of nations.”
“Yes, through languages do you see, through languages, or more specifically…” he went on, giving great emphasis to the singular, “through a language.”
He laced his fingers.
“Please, let me explain it simply. Life on our planet evolved in much the way yours did. However, when the inhabitants of one land mass became aware of the existence of another… let’s call them peoples ‘a’ and peoples ‘b’; they, or should I say we, differed in one major respect. We had a great, overriding desire to speak with each other, to communicate, and as a result, a third language evolved, language ‘c’. A common language. A language that both groups used.” He smiled again, “You can probably imagine how this whole scenario runs on, can’t you? Other groups being discovered… the same continuing desire to talk freely, using a common language… ‘c’ became ‘d’, that became ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘h’, ‘i’… and so on. Of course, I am describing in short, a very long history, but that’s the nub of it.” He raised his eyebrows. “I think you get the picture.”
The professor nodded.
“So, there you have it. Where I come from, let us say in simple terms, all nations, all groups, all peoples, speak the same language.” With that, he sat back.
For the longest time, the two men sat staring at one another.
The professor finally fell back in his chair and closed his eyes.
When he opened them… he was alone.
