Gobbledygook

A story about love, family, language, and business

Image generated by Midjourney

“There’s something wrong with Daddy,” Cassie said as she poked her mother’s arm. 

Evelyn closed her book, sat up in bed, and asked her ten-year-old daughter, “What’s the matter with Daddy?” She glanced at the night table clock, which glowed eight-fifty-six p.m.

“Daddy’s back from the office.”

“That’s good, sweetie, but what’s the problem?”

“I don’t understand Daddy. I don’t understand his words.” Cassie tugged at her Miffy pajama sleeve and shuffled her feet, making sparks on the carpeted bedroom floor. 

“You’re sleepy, that’s probably why you didn’t understand him. But you're learning new vocabulary in school, so I’m sure that whatever words daddy used, you’ll understand them soon. What do you say we go downstairs and figure out daddy’s vocabulary together?”

“K.” 

Kevin Oglethorpe stood in front of the open refrigerator, one hand on the handle, the other wavering like a divining rod between a beer and a water bottle. His dark gray suit fitted him like tailored armor, his azure tie glowed like coral, and his black, leather Miu Mius reflected the full moon through the kitchen window. He turned and said, “Decision-tree pathways require bifold assessment, but temperature and stress issues indicate the beer. Apply standard deviation formula here.” 

Cassie frowned. “See, Mommy. I don’t understand Daddy.”

Evelyn squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Your Daddy’s just being funny.”

After a few moments, Kevin’s fingers wrapped around the Rogue IPA. He popped it open, took a long sip, rested the bottle on the kitchen island, and then lifted Cassie off the floor, spinning her five times.

“Whee!”

He lowered her to the ground.

“Again, Daddy, again.” 

He kissed Cassie’s cheek. 

She promptly wiped off the kiss. 

“Middle management suffered a gap in emotional support services during the extended occupational activity today, resulting in a requirement for proximity contact,” Kevin said. 

Evelyn tilted her head. “Daddy’s a comedian. I think he said he had a long day at the office.” 

I have no idea what he said, Evelyn thought. No idea at all. 

“Maybe Daddy can talk normal now so I can understand him,” Cassie suggested. 

“Yes, please.”

“Multiple cascading anthropomorphic failures unfactored into the day’s organizational parameters resulted in no mid-day feeding, followed by sequential meetings to discuss targeting marketing for our innovative Creee X.” He drank his beer and exhaled a long sigh. “Medical center within acceptable range?”

“Okay, so—” Evelyn knelt next to Cassie. “Daddy needs his sleep.” 

Cassie yawned. “Me, too.”

Evelyn playfully smacked Kevin’s behind. “Off to bed you go. I’ll tuck Cassie in, and be right there.”

When Evelyn entered their bedroom, Kevin was in his pajamas, fast asleep, and rolled onto his side. Evelyn slipped into bed, pulled the quilt over them, spooned him, and was dreaming in minutes.

The next morning, while Evelyn was making her breakfast, Kevin’s seven a.m. alarm buzzed. She shouted up the stairs, “Do you want eggs? I can make you eggs, but I have to hurry because my shift starts at eight.”

There was no answer. 

Evelyn glanced at her watch, noted that she had a few spare minutes, scrambled three more eggs, and dropped two slices of Farmer’s Wheat into the toaster. 

Evelyn had just finished eating her breakfast when Kevin and Cassie arrived in the kitchen at the same time. 

Cassie cupped her hands around Evelyn’s ears and whispered, “Mommy, I still can’t understand Daddy.”

“Are you feeling okay, Kev?” She scanned him with her doctor’s eyes. 

Kevin cocked his head to the left, blinked several times, and shrugged. He sprinkled salt on his scrambled eggs, ate a forkful, and continued, “A minimum of seven hours of unresponsive time recalibrated the system. Complete matrix sustained with protein structures complement but low wavelength spectrum liquid?”

“Pardon?”

“Low wavelength spectrum liquid.”

Evelyn grimaced. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Kevin huffed, stomped to the fridge, and poured himself a glass of orange juice. 

“Spectrum liquid?” Evelyn asked, though that was the least of what she couldn’t understand. As a pediatrician, she’d seen many psychiatric problems, including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s Syndrome, anxiety, and conduct disorder. But this was over-the-top strange.

When he finished his breakfast, Kevin said, “Efficient reusable food production system.”

At one o’clock, Evelyn entered the packed hospital cafeteria. Doctors and nurses hurried through their lunches, eyes flitting between food and phones.

With her lunch tray in her hands, Evelyn hovered beside William Gates. “Mind if I join you?” 

Dr. Gates was a neurologist. Evelyn had looked around the cafeteria but didn’t spot any psychiatrists, her first choice for a lunch mate. A neurologist would have to do.

Before Evelyn could describe Kevin’s bizarre behavior, William blurted, “Amy’s strange.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m taking my wife to see Jenkins, a hospital shrink, tomorrow, assuming she’s not better by then, which seems unlikely given her weird symptoms.” 

“Tell me.”

“Everything she said last night and this morning was impenetrable jargon—total business speak. It was nonsensical. At one point, she even recited statistical equations as if they were some kind of poetry. Amy appeared to understand what she said, but I didn’t. Worse, she didn’t comprehend a word I said. She might as well have been speaking Finnish. I did a quick exam this morning: Her eyes, lungs, and heart rate were normal. I took her BP and did a home saliva test for basic abnormalities.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“I have.” 

“Where?”

“Last night, Kevin spoke in indecipherable business speak. Like Amy, he didn’t comprehend anything our daughter or I said.”

“Where does he work?”

“Yumit Pharmaceuticals.”

“Amy’s in business, too. She’s a vice-president at Ketchum Systems.”

“Sorry to butt in, but may I join you?” Evelyn turned to Jasmine Caull, an orthopedist, who was balancing a cobb salad, garlic bread, fruit cup, and two coffees on her tray. 

“Sure, sure,” Evelyn said.

“I couldn’t help overhearing. And I’ve got something to share. I’m in line for a promotion to run the Emergency Department. Although it’s a management position, I’d still be doctoring, but spending a lot of my time doing what management does: increasing profits and cutting costs.” 

Evelyn squinted.

“Don’t look at me that way. It does us all good because the more profit the hospital makes, the more doctors are paid.”

“Oh, really?”

“Anyway, I had a meeting this morning with Alan Yellin in corporate, but it was unlike any meeting I’ve been to. Nothing he said made sense. I took notes: ‘Patients' unmet needs can be offset by low-stock inventory cost savings,’ ‘This position offers a superior salary situation coupled with user-selected time-off ability and the option for institutional investment’.”

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asked. 

“Gobbledygook,” William offered. His phone buzzed. He clicked through a couple of screens and almost dropped it into his tomato soup. 

“Doctors, you’ve got to see this.” He leaned the phone against the coffee cup and pressed the volume slider to maximum. 

Evelyn and Jasmine’s chairs screeched against the linoleum floor as they huddled around the phone. 

A nervous CNN anchor, with half-coiffed hair and whose makeup was only partially complete, reported, “There’s a strange, inexplicable phenomenon throughout America. I…I can’t believe it, and I’m not even sure I can describe it.” As he glanced at the paper in his hands, a tech wearing a battery belt and wired headphones passed him another sheet. “People who work in management, executive positions, and certain staff jobs are suddenly talking in business language and only business language. They have lost the ability to speak and understand normal English. This is unbelievable. Give me a moment to process.” 

The anchor removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, folded his hands on the table, and closed his eyes, as though he was in deep meditation. After a minute, he resumed. “America has abruptly been divided into two different linguistic nations, each unintelligible to the other.”

The hubbub of voices disappeared, and silence shrouded the cafeteria. Everyone stared at their phones. 

“Oh my god, Amy—”

“Shh,” Evelyn said. 

The CNN anchor deepened his voice. “An estimated ninety million people out of a population of three-hundred-twenty million are afflicted with this…this condition. Twenty-eight percent of Americans cannot communicate with the rest of the country and vice versa.” He pressed his forefinger to his ear. “I’ve received word that Google, Apple, and Microsoft are working on translation software, though they can’t say how long it will take to develop these translators or if they will succeed, especially because management in those companies can’t communicate with software engineers.”

“How did this happen? What do we do now?” Evelyn asked. 

William shook his head. “It’s going to be difficult, maybe impossible, to continue our marriages. How could we? Worse, this linguistic divide will become a geographic divide, too, because business speakers will want to live among themselves. They will want and need to form their own communities. But we’ll be lucky if that’s all that happens.”

“What do you mean?”

“The two sides will be in conflict for resources. Business speakers will develop ideologies and beliefs divergent from the rest of America. There may be war because a war would establish boundaries, clarify the differences between the two states, and create permanent independence for the Business English speakers. Soon, a leader of the Business English nation will emerge, and that person will need to assert themself to consolidate power. Like a tornado that appears out of nowhere, the only sure result is devastation.”

“Oh no.” Evelyn covered her face with her hands and cried. 

So did William and Jasmine. 

The CNN anchor wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.

Over the next six hours, until Evelyn’s shift was over, she treated dozens of patients brought in by their families who only spoke Business English. Although she was a pediatrician and adult medicine wasn’t her normal course of work, nothing about the day was normal. The government asked all hospitals and physicians to see everyone who came in for treatment in the hope of gathering data to figure out what happened.

Evelyn returned home at 7:15 p.m. As she unlocked the front door, she heard three sets of feet dash her way: Cassie, their cocker spaniel, George, and Kevin. Cassie hugged her mom tightly while George orbited her, barking. Kevin stood silently in the front hallway, a vacant expression on his face. 

Evelyn felt as if her body were accelerating, but accelerating to what or where? 

Every cell of her body was in pain. 

She and Kevin had decisions to make, if they could communicate at all. Would Kevin live with them? Would he move to a Business English community? What about visits? When and how could Kevin see his daughter? 

Would they become enemies, as Dr. Gates hinted?

If Kevin wanted to take George—his dog before they got married—she’d let him, and if Cassie wanted another pet, she’d get her one. Or two pets, or twenty.

What is it like to lose a father not through divorce or death but because of the incomprehensible? Evelyn would do whatever she needed to lessen Cassie’s trauma. 

The cold wind spilling through the open door chilled her. She sobbed. 

After a minute, Cassie let go of her mother. 

George slipped between them, licked Cassie’s face, and ran to the living room. 

Cassie said to her mom, “Co-founder of me, process preceding with parameters. The unit’s sincerest apologies for vivacity, but we anticipate expeditious acceptance of the novel phratry structure.”

Kevin smiled, offered Cassie his hand, and they walked with swinging arms to the couch. Kevin slipped a bookmark out of a thin book, opening it to the middle. Cassie snuggled close as her father read to her from the UniySys Corporation Annual Report. 

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If you enjoyed Gobbledygook, I think you’ll also like my story, The Twenty-Six.