Word Allergy

I parked my car and took a deep breath. How bad could a hiking club be? We'd look at plants and identify trees, see some birds, take pictures, and get to the top of a mountain together. It would be fun. Still I was nervous when I approached the guide and the usual questions began.

"Caroline, right?" He checked my name off a list. "And what word are you allergic to?" He asked. I pulled out the medical card case and averted my eyes while he flipped it open. Touching the word directly makes my fingers itch. Looking at it makes my eyes smart and eventually results in full on tears and a stuffed nose, like I was cutting an onion. Hearing it starts a slow build up of reactions until I can't breathe. Saying it myself sends me straight into anaphylactic shock. He read the card and then the questions start.

"Can I say H2O? No? What about-"

"Just read the card," I beg. "It's all right there."

Hearing H2O isn't as bad as the actual word, but it still leaves my ears ringing. Why are people so possessed with the idea that they have to verbally ask for every single possible synonym? One or two, I can handle, annoying as it is. But a whole diluge of synonyms can still put me in the hospital. Acceptable words are listed on the card. All they have to do is read it. I can say it in French, l'eau, but not in Spanish. Ocean, sea, tears are okay. My doctor says it's because the salt in them mitigates the idea of the actual word. But if it's a a form of the word without salt? Not happening. I have to be careful with pool. I can say it, but it makes my tongue fuzzy. I try to save it for if I'm having a really hard time communicating and the other person's being dense. 

Then he started on the next set of questions and I tried to hold my frustration in. It's not his fault all the questions people ask are the same. "But you can drink it right? It's everywhere; it's not like you can avoid it. Are you sure it's a real allergy?"

Yes I can drink it. It's a word allergy, not a food allergy. No, I can't avoid it; but it puts a lot of limits on what I can do. Yes it's real and not in my head. Once when I was eight, my uncle yelled it at me over and over again, until my ears rang so hard they bled and I fainted because I couldn't breathe. I woke up in the hospital and my parents never spoke to that uncle again. 

"How do you manage? Don't you ever do anything fun?"

I manage the way everyone with word allergies does. I wear earplugs or headphones and carry my medical cards at all times. Also a white board, so that new people can write to me, until I decide it's safe to take the headphones off. I never take them off in crowded public places; there's too much risk. Texting is a lifesaver. Even if someone forgets and uses the word, it's not as bad as hearing it. I rarely take calls. I work remotely, which also helps.

"But don't you get lonely?"

Well, that's why I'm here. I  enjoy nature and a hiking club seemed like a good way to get outside and meet new friends. He hands the card case back. "Great to have you on board. Before we start up the trail be sure to grab a water bottle."

Sunken

Photo by David Boca on Unsplash

Beneath the lapping waves

Where a golden sun makes its grave

In indigo and murky violet hue

Rise eerie forgotten views

Primordial remains steeped in brine

Here a column, there a shrine

Stone faces peering out from the past

Reminding us that nothing lasts

Written for dVerse.

The Missing Lake

Photo by Dylan Freedom on Unsplash

I looked over the rock garden with a frown. I’d spent weeks designing and trying to create a lake-like effect with bare stone. It was supposed to accentuate the archeological site in the drained lake. In a few weeks, the University would be unveiling it to the world as the place where Excalibur had been found. So far only the University professors and a few select scholars knew about the find and had been studying it in privacy. Of course everyone knew that something was going on, but the University had been telling everyone it was just looking for stuff about the school’s origins, which I guess was technically true. The Lady of the Lake had given Arthur and taken the sword back, and the University was named after her… If she even existed. From what I’d heard from the excited professors, it was looking more likely that a small city with an advanced blacksmith had been established here.

Even after all my work, the rock garden still was unsatisfactory. It was one of the most challenging projects I’d ever taken on. Vivienne University had been maddening insistent that the “garden” be movable and weren’t interested in anything with roots. It had taken me weeks of arguing to persuade them that moss tucked into the rock cervices and a small water feature would add sufficient interest to be worthwhile. With so many limitations, the garden wasn’t a masterpiece, but it had turned out better than I’d hoped, even if I wasn’t completely happy with it.

Walking along the gravel path towards the dig, I bent down to straighten a stone with gold lines running through it, when I touched it felt warm. Standing up to get a better look at it, I suddenly realized I wasn’t in England anymore. Gone were the rocks and moss I had slaved over. Instead, I was standing on some kind of a balcony, overlooking a flooded city. The gold lines in the rock I was holding were glowing. Alarm raced through me. Apparently I’d ended up in fairyland. How could I get out again? Turning around, I discovered there was a woman on the balcony with me.

I expected her to be the most beautiful woman in the world, but she wasn’t. Really, she was rather ordinary, except for the fact that she wasn’t. She was standing still and looked like someone had taken a picture right as she’d moved, so her edges were blurred. Not enough to be noticeable at a first glance, but enough that it was there and made her hard to look at. When she finally advanced towards me, everything about her shifted as if she wasn’t there and then she was. I was expecting a demand to know what I was doing in her domain, or a mysterious welcome into a world I couldn’t understand and braced myself for it.

“Where is my lake?” she yelled. “Where’s Arthur’s heir? I sent the brat the sword and has anyone come to ask my advice on anything? No! And now my lake is missing!” The water in the flooded city rose up with each crescendo of her voice, until it was a towering wave above us.

“I’m sorry,” I said trying to keep my voice from trembling. “I’m just the gardner and I’m not even from the U.K. Maybe you should talk to someone else.”

She glared at me, “How am I supposed to travel through the worlds if my lake is gone?”

“I got here. So there must be a way -”

She through her arms up in the air and the spray from the water drenched us. “Where’s the poetry in picking up a rock? I need a lake to rise from the waters as if I were a living wave. How can I be the Lady of the Lake if there’s no lake?”

Well that confirmed who she was. The University would have a field day if they knew the actual Lady of the Lake existed. What would that mean about the village with the blacksmith they had discovered? Her mere presence rewrote history. The history that we knew about anyways. “Perhaps you could talk to the University about the lake,” I suggested tentatively. “If you could answer some of their questions -”

She suddenly locked eyes with me and I couldn’t finish. Her eyes were strange - probably green, but with an eerie yellow glow. “Questions? I have answers for every question you mortals could ask.” She sounded disdainful, but the waters around us calmed.

“I’m sure they have tons of questions only you could answer,” I said helpfully. “And if you talk to them, maybe they’d be willing to put your lake back. If you like, I could take you to them.” I wasn’t sure about that last part. The University was terribly excited about the dig, and there was still more to unearth. But I was willing to say anything to get out.

Her strange eyes flashed and with a wave of her hand we were back on the University grounds. I promptly dropped the rock. The gold lines vanished as it hit the ground. Careful to avoid it, I picked my way across the path to the University. “Come this way,” I called over my shoulder, without stopping to see if she was coming. As I tried not to bolt across my rock lake I marveled that it was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen and for the first time I was glad there was no water.

For more garden adventures see Avalon Gardens and The Gist of a Lake.