In the Valley long ago there were People. Lots of them. And they loved to talk. They spoke and laughed and told jokes and crafted the most intricate and heartfelt stories. But now they are no more. Only a fragment of the language they spoke still remains. It is kept safe and preserved for all of time in the Museum of the Valley.

Less long ago there was a Girl. She had a sister, a sister who knew from nowhere the language of the People from long ago. She spoke it only to herself and the valley. Except for two words, which meant hello and goodbye. She said this to the Girl everyday until she died. Hello in the mornings, and goodby in the evenings. When her sister was alive, the Girl never spoke those words back to her, she didn’t know what they meant and she didn’t want to ask. That hurt the Sister, she wanted them to share her secret of the lost language. But now her sister is dead and the Girl will never be able to listen to her explain what those words meant. So the Girl speaks those words now. She goes to the grave every morning and speaks to her sleeping sister. She doesn’t know what they mean but she says them anyway, Rela in the morning, and Nioana in the evening. 

-

In the same time land there was this Man. He was respected and renowned because he knew so many dead languages of the people of long past times. He was odd, quiet, efficient, prideful and paranoid. It was rumored that he would always have a servant taste his food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. He wouldn’t give speeches or talks on what he knew, no matter how much people begged him to. Instead, he would have them invite him to a gathering and place him in the audience, close to the front. They would talk about what they knew and he would interrupt with what he knew. He always knew more. The audience would gasp and applaud and thank the stars above that he had been there to share what he knew. He liked it that way. Being praised and right.

One time he was at a small convention. It was just a wooden platform with one speaker facing rows of chairs filled with people. The Museum of the Valley has just burned down, the lost languages with it, and gatherings like this had sprung up in its memory. This was the museum that had held the lost language of the People of the Valley. He knew it. He was here to prove that.

The speaker here must have been new to his ways, she didn’t know to play his game. She called him from her podium and asked him to share some words he knew. They’re not supposed to do that, he was supposed to have the control. He was angry, so he stood and told her only one word Ninaga, which meant goodbye. The Girl in the front row spoke up. She corrected him, saying the word was actually Nioana, she was believed. The man nodded and sat down as the crowd looked in awe at her, but he was not happy. She knew more, and no one can no more. That needed to change, he decided. He prepared a meal for the Girl, to thank her for correcting him and for teaching him how to learn from others. He would be a better person, one who learned from his mistakes.

-

Years later, he married. The Woman is bright, smart, charismatic, the opposite of him, they matched like mornings and evenings. The Woman loves languages too, and she once knew the Sister. The Sister taught the Woman the two words whose meanings the Girl ignored. The Man did not know them. But they were happy together and that was worth more than his pride. But she knew something he did not.

Perhaps it is why that day he didn’t eat his lunch. Why, after the servant tasted his food to make sure it wasn't poisoned and left it in his study, he didn’t even touch it. He instead gave it to the Woman, it wouldn’t go to waste.

He had been pushed out of his habit of not presenting. Now he had a show. That was the Woman’s doing, and he loved her for it. She gave him the personality he never had, and together, they educated the people on the languages of the People from long ago.

That day, he started the show before her, a rare occurrence. Staying true to her bubbly self, the Woman ran out to the stage to meet him carrying a glass of red wine left over from her lunch. She sat down and he was a whole person again. They talked and she laughed and laughed. She liked to lean forward when she did this. This time she leaned to the side so her face was near his shoulder. Her laughter petered out then stopped, but she was still leaning. He looked down, she had spilled some wine on his cashmere sweater. He chastised her for it.

Her face was pained and white, waxy even, her breath was wheezing. She whispered, so quiet that he and the camera could barely hear, “that’s not wine”. She coughed one time and more of that silky, wine-red liquid spilled from her lips. That day he ended the show after her too.

The Man was so still. When she was dying and after she died. Most would call it horrendous behavior, but this was how he was, so no one took note. Later, it was found that a servant had died of the same illness. The doctors told him it was something they got from a spoiled fruit. No one took note that only the servant and the Woman had eaten his lunch that day. And no one took note that all those years ago, there was a Girl. One who knew more. One who, from the same illness, now sleeps alongside her sister.