Golden Phrases and the Cosmic Grammarians

“He’s ready for a relationship – and you are a sinking ship.”

I try not to laugh as I transcribe the words into my Moleskin. I don’t want the woman who said them or her friend to know I’m listening – even though what I’m doing can hardly be considered eavesdropping. I’m just sitting here, sipping my overpriced coffee and letting the world spin around me. They are the ones talking loudly enough for half the café to hear. But I don’t mind. Afterall, I come here every morning just to listen to people like them.

I collect phrases. I’ve been doing it ever since I learned to write. It’s not exactly found poetry, but there is real beauty in it. That’s what my dad used to say, anyway. On drowsy summer afternoons when I was a kid, he would take me to get ice cream and we would sit on the patio licking our cones, watching the people of our little town go about their business. He would make up stories about them, imagining their backgrounds or filling-in dialogue for conversations we were too far away to hear. Occasionally when he heard something he liked, he would pull out his own small, black notebook and write it down. Then he’d wink at me and say, “That one was gold, Sammy.”

The “sinking ship” line is clever and worth remembering, but it’s not gold. Gold is something else. Golden phrases make me feel a certain way. My first few Moleskins were filled with puns and witty insults, but over the years I became attuned to the difference between witty and golden.

A man walks by me on his way out of the café and I overhear my first truly golden phrase of the day. He’s on a call and as he pushes the door open, he says, “I’ve been knowing you for years and you still want to try and pull this?”

“I’ve been knowing you.”

This is what I’m really looking for: ungrammatical phrases that make the familiar sound alien. They are rarer than you might think. In fact, I still remember the first bit of gold I recognized on my own. I was in third grade and one of my classmates brought in an action figure for show and tell. He held it aloft and proudly declared that it, “costed thirty-five dollars!” The rest of that day, I remember wandering the halls repeating "costed" under my breath like it was a spell. And knowing what I know now, I suppose it was a sort of spell.

The door closes behind the man and I turn to check the time on the wall clock. It’s already half past, so I take my last sip of coffee, stand, and stretch. Normally getting nine new phrases – one of them gold – would leave me elated, but something puts me on edge. Or someone, to be more accurate.

Below the wall clock sits a turtley man in an oversized suit. He has a shiny bald head and thick glasses that make his eyes look massive. I didn’t think anything of him when he first came in, but now I can’t shake the feeling that he has been watching me.

Maybe he’s just watching you watch everyone else, I tell myself, as if that is a reasonable explanation.

I should say now I’m not paranoid or anything. I’m a normal guy who lives in a normal apartment and I have a normal job in a used bookshop. Actually, I own the bookshop, but I’m not rich or anything. As you might imagine, there isn’t a lot of money in secondhand books. I inherited the shop and its sole employee, Kokoro, from my dad. Since he died, I’ve sort of let it go to hell. But my point is, I’m not the kind of person anyone should be watching surreptitiously.

I hustle outside and speed-walk to the bus stop. A few moments later, the stranger exits, but he heads in the opposite direction. I watch him until his bald pate disappears around the corner. I relax and put on a podcast. A few minutes later, the 52 east comes. A few minutes after that, I get off in front of my store.

Kokoro is already inside and before I can greet her, she says, “There’s a man waiting for you in your office, Samuel.”

I’ve known Kokoro my whole life but she insists on calling me “Samuel,” never “Sam” or “Sammy.”

“A man?” I ask. “Who?” But I recognize the stranger as soon as I see the back of his shiny head.

“You again,” I say reflexively.

He turns smiling up at me and says, “Hello, Sammy.”

He speaks with a vaguely European accent. When he blinks his huge eyes, it is like a slide changing in a projector.

I take my seat on the opposite side of the desk. “Can I help you?” I ask, but change my mind before he can answer. “Why are you following me?”

He smiles. “To answer both of your questions: I am hoping you can help me.”

“Kokoro said you knew my father.”

“Indeed I did. Many years ago – well before he settled in this little dump of a town.”

This gets under my skin a bit – I like my little dump of a town – but I don’t let it show. Instead I asked, “Well what is it you think I can help you with?”

He leans an elbow on the desk and says, “Can I ask: what were you doing in that café?”

“Nothing,” I say, “just…”

“Just what?”

“Just listening.”

His smile widens and he leans back. “Like your father, yes? Hunting for gold?”

The fact that he knows this private term makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but again, I try to hide my reaction.

“Why do you do it?” he continues.

I shrug. “It’s just something we did together.” The stranger keeps staring at me and in spite of myself, I keep talking. “My father used to say our minds are trained to order, to find structure, to simplify and streamline the world around us. Yet, even though language is orderly, it’s not fixed. We can say something ungrammatical and still be understood. I guess to him, that was a little bit magical.”

“Oh, not a little bit,” the stranger says, “not a little bit at all.”

“I’m sorry,” I cut in, “but who are you? You haven’t even told me your name.”

“You can call me Harold.” He goes on to explain that in his previous life, my father had been part of a secret society call the Order of Orderers.

I don’t believe him and say, “That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”

“That may be,” Harold replies, “but its purpose is of deepest importance. You see, the phrases you and your father collected are not actually significant, but the dissonance they create in the mind is.”

“Why is that?”

Harold abruptly stands and begins reciting in a foreign language. Suddenly, he is no longer standing in front of my desk – he is right next to me.

“Wha–!” I shout, jerking away from him and tipping sideways off my chair. “How did you do that?”

“With golden phrases,” he says as he returns to his seat.

Over the next hour, he explains how all magic is created through linguistic dissonance. Every language throughout history has produced it, but the “spells” change along with the conventions of languages. The Order of Orderers was tasked with keeping track of this magic and preventing it from spilling into the world at random.

“So you guys are just grammarians?”

At this, Harold erupts with laughter. “Sure, cosmic grammarians, but yes, grammarians none the less.”

I think about it a moment before coming back to the point. “You still have not told me how I can help you.”

He splays his hands and says, “I have come to collect your father’s notebooks.”

“They’re all I have left of him.”

It’s not exactly true: I have the bookstore he left me and the home I grew up in as well, but Harold nods and says, “I know. I also know you are in some financial trouble right now. Rent has gone up but your sales have fallen, am I right? You are, I understand, over fifteen thousand dollars in debt.”

He is right. I'm currently behind on rent, taxes, and payments to four of my vendors. I know this, of course, but hearing the amount out loud still makes my stomach twist.

“I can help you,” he says. “I will pay off your debts in exchange for his notebooks. How does that sound?”

It sounds amazing and I lean back to look at the ceiling, wondering how it is my day has taken such an incredible turn.

Misunderstanding my silence, Harold says, “Fine, twenty thousand.”

He reaches into the pocket of his oversized jacket and pulls out two stacks of cash wrapped with currency bands that read, “$10,000.” I’m sure he can hear my heart thudding excitedly in my chest, but instead of saying yes, I ask, “Why can’t you just collect new phrases?”

He sighs. “Your father had the best ear in generations – maybe ever. Unfortunately, after he left the order, the amount of new magic discovered has dropped off significantly.”

“Seems like you really need these notebooks.”

I don’t know where this burst of confidence comes from – I’ve never negotiated for anything in my life – but suddenly I’m acting like Lee Iacocca.

“My boy,” Harold says, “we all need those notebooks. You, me, the entire planet. The magic we wield is the dividing line between that which is real and that which is only illusion. Without this line, there is no truth in the world, no agreed upon facts. Do you understand what that means? Everything falls apart. Not just society, but reality. So please, will you give me the notebooks?”

My eyes flick to the bottom drawer of my desk where I keep dad’s old Moleskins. I blink and rub my brow trying to play it off, but I can tell Harold has caught on. It’s obvious that if he can teleport, he can take the notebooks from me with little effort, but he doesn’t seem to want to do that.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I finally say.

“Do you know how your father died?” Harold asks.

“He had a heart attack, right here in this office.”

“His heart was attacked, yes.”

“What? What do you mean? Are you saying someone killed him?”

“That is exactly what I am saying. The Order of Orderers is not the only magical guild. With your help, we could catch who did it. But we’ll need his notebooks. And you.”

“And me?”

“I watched you all morning, Sammy. You have the gift. With training, you could be great. Maybe even as good as your father. And while his notebooks will last us a little while, what we really need is a new ear. We need you.”

“Come off it,” I say.

“I’m serious. Is this really what you want to do with your life? Sit in cafes and run your father’s business into the ground?”

“Maybe I do.”

“No, you don’t. You are driven to collect magic phrases, but it’s like raw ore you don’t know how to process. I can teach you.”

I think about it a minute. Then a minute longer. “This is crazy,” I say to myself. “This is nuts – I don’t know you. What if you’re one of the bad word-wizards?”

“He’s not.”

I turn and find Kokoro standing behind me. “You can trust him.”

“So what do you say, Sammy?”

I don’t need to think about it anymore. I open my desk drawer and pull out dad’s old Moleskins.