“To Increase Seasons of Change”

Learning a Language Only to Forget It

originally published April 2, 2008

Back in school, I was pretty good at French. I gave presentations in class and could coo out whole paragraphs like a sultry-tongued Binoche. I thought I would remember the language forever. I was really drawn to it, and I used to have thoughts in French. I even had a few dreams where French subtitles were along the bottoms of my visions. On our honeymoon to Paris last year, I realized that not using a language for six years can really wipe out your skills. In the red light district, we got swindled by a pregnant burlesque dancer who grossly overcharged us for drinks. Conveniently and all of a sudden, no one at the Dream Bar knew English, and I realized that I had forgotten practically all the French I had ever learned.

Then, cleaning out my desk drawers yesterday, I found a folk story I had written for a homework assignment back during the spring semester of 2001. I couldn’t understand much of it, but I remembered writing it and I remembered the premise. It’s about a man who got some abnormal seeds from a Spaniard. When he planted them in his greenhouse, they didn’t develop stems and leaves like most plants. Instead, the features of women came up out of the soil. The only problem was that every time he played his guitar and sang near the growing women, they died.

I didn’t remember how the story ended and I couldn’t read the French I had written, so I decided to translate my folktale into English using AltaVista’s Babel Fish. Apparently I titled the piece “To Increase Seasons of Change.” Here is the translated ending:

The man took seeds and went to his house. He took them at his house green and put a seed in the ground. In two weeks the man saw some things. They was the hair coming from the ground. In three days there was a face of a girl. Two weeks more and there a girl like all the pretty girls of the city was. Its legs were enracinées on the ground and its centers went to the sun. It gave the girl water, the sun and the manure of its cow. It grew. It was pretty.

The man took his guitar with the back court and started to play his song. He played; he sang. He loved the girl and wanted the girl to increase. He wanted the love. He wanted the girl to like the love.The next morning it left to find the girl dead. It cried. However it had other seeds. It put one in the ground and waited. A girl came after one month, but after its song it died.

The man wanted to play of his guitar, but he wanted a girl to like too. He planted seed after seed and tried to play for each one. All the girls died. Then it only has a seed. After expèrimenter with all seeds, the man could control the aspect of the girls. The sun made the lighter of hair. Made water hips and the centre to run. Personality was changed by manure of its cow. The man knew to make the perfect girl, but there was a problem. It was the last seed, and it knew that it could not play its guitar close to the perfect girl or she would die like the other girls.

It grew. The perfect girl grew and a day went out of the ground and in the house. The man loved the girl, and she loved the man. They slept and managed together. They had together at the day and had really together at the night.

However, the man wanted to play of his guitar. It missed the guitar and was sad because it knew that it would die if he played a song. The girl knew that the man was sad. She loved the man and did not like to see its sadness. Therefore, one night when the man slept, the perfect girl went to the back court to herself play of the guitar. Here is the song which it sang in the tone of F.

I was the seeds which grew of its ground

By the sea, by the sea.

I was his heart, his heart, his life

His friend, his friend.

It will carry me each night and day,

I adore it. I adore it.

Put me in the house of the green

By the sea, by the sea.

The man found the day following. The perfect girl had died. He put it in the house of the green under the ground. He had many emotions. He played of the guitar. He sang. He cried.

The ending was pretty sad. As you can see, I used to be good at French, and AltaVista obviously has a few kinks to work out. Although I can’t read what I wrote in its original language, I’m sure it was a lot more sophisticated than this internet translation lets on. So good luck AltaVista, and even though most of you will have to have it translated, I’ll give my final salutation in French. Bonsoir, tige pour des lecteurs d’un drapeau.

Darrell Kinsey