The Year of The Spanish Fever
The world is full of people who dream of one day having time to pursue foreign language. The old man wasn’t one of them.
He had been lobotomized by a dead language during his formative years and there was no reason to expect he’d met another language late in life.
The idea of studying Spanish came through the back door, strictly as the means to an end. There was no love or commitment involved. He planned to exploit the language and then walk away.
He had started businesses. He and his wife had raised two durable children. He’d frequently been sober and attentive — a little boring, in fact. He didn’t go off to college. He hadn’t gotten away for more than two weeks during his adult life.
His corner of the country began to feel small. Then the entire North American continent started to close in on him. He overheard young people talking about “gap years” and he wondered if anybody made gaps for people like him.
The old man was coming down with something.
| LOST IN TRANSLATION | Spanish speakers don’t “come and go.” They “go and come.”
…the full series is posted at shiplett.com
