The Lexipals Program

The good news was that Derek was heading to Spain for a dream vacation in a little over a week. The bad news was that he couldn’t remember any of his high school Spanish except the word bufanda, for some reason.

Sure, there were lots of language learning apps, but they seemed like a lot of work. Then he saw the ad for Lexipals.

“Learn a foreign language instantly! No effort! 100% customizable!”

Derek was skeptical but also intrigued. They claimed to deliver the words directly to him, whatever that meant. He ordered the starter pack of 1000 words since he couldn’t imagine needing more than that.

Three days later, a large box arrived, which was filled with smaller boxes. He opened the first and a tiny, pudgy creature climbed out. Inside the box, he glimpsed a tiny bed and dresser set.

“Asesinato!” the creature cooed and did a somersault. Aw, how cute, Derek thought.

He’d unpacked a dozen more words when he found the instructions. “Congratulations on your purchase of Lexipals!” it said. “Each Lexipal is a Spanish word. They know who their friends are, so you just need to watch them and see which words go together. This is how babies learn language!”

Derek wasn’t sure that was true, but it was a novel way to learn a language.

After he had unpacked them all, there were 1000 tiny words milling around and the air hummed with Spanish. They did seem to break into groups quickly. Every now and then a few would join hands in a line, and each say their name in turn. As Derek watched, two words rushed at a short, fat word and grabbed its hands.

“Más—”

“—o—”

“—menos.”

The friendliest was a little guy who kept hugging other words and shouting “muy!” making the other word say their name. It really like the bueno guy, which seemed nice.

Other words seemed to dislike each other. Two squat words would walk past each other and shove the other. “Jamón,” one said.

“Jabón,” the other one retorted.

Despite being constantly around Spanish for a week, Derek did not feel ready to leave his words behind as his trip approached. He didn’t have room to take all their boxes with him, so he just dumped all the words in his suitcase and pushed them down. There was some low grumbling and one word named Atestado kept squeaking at him. He sat on the suitcase and squashed it down.

“Muy—”

“—atestado!”

Two days later, he arrived in his hotel room in Madrid. As soon as he opened his suitcase, the words boiled out. Three of the biggest words joined hands and then grabbed another one by the hand.

“Dónde—”

“—está—”

“—el—”

“—baño.”

Hmm, that sounded important, whatever it meant. He’d have to remember that.

That night, the words did not rest even after Derek turned off the lights. They crawled all over him, whispering their names in his ears.

I guess this is what they mean by language immersion, he thought.

Two called Cansado and Confundido hung around a lot and Muy, who seemed to have all the energy in the world, kept running up and hugging them. At 1:00am, he looked over and saw that Jamón and Jabón were having a fistfight on the nightstand. He rolled over.

The next day Derek got dressed and was heading towards the door when he heard murmuring behind him. He looked back to see 1000 tiny Lexipals lined up behind him ready to go outside. While it made sense to bring his Spanish words with him, Derek felt he needed a bit of space away from Spanish vocabulary for the moment. He went out and quickly shut the door. He’d have to just do his best and hope something had sunk in.

The receptionist smiled at him as he came out of the elevator. “How did you sleep, sir?”

This was the perfect time to use his Spanish. “Muy jamón, gracias,” he said then stopped and shook his head. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I must still be tired from the flight. Muy jabón, gracias.”

The receptionist smiled tolerantly. “Very good, sir.”

Spanish words:

Asesinato:   murder

Más o menos: more or less

Muy: very

Jamón: ham

Jabón: soap

Atestado: crowded

Dónde está el baño: where is the bathroom

Cansado: tired

Confundido: confused

A note on the story: This was supposed to a Friday Fictioneers story, based on the story prompt here. The problem is that Friday Fictioneers stories are 100 words long and it was quickly apparent this would need more to do it justice. I was going to write another one for Friday Fictioneers but then didn’t get time. So this remains an unauthorized usage of the prompt, which is why I didn’t use the picture or post it in the group.