Maybe a vacation was in order. Jim could dip into his savings and take a flight to somewhere exotic: the Caribbean, Brazil, the Rockies. Europe or Hawaii would be too expensive. Perhaps he could combine business with pleasure and fly down to California? Stop in at Stork Publishing, chat with Elaine and Jeremy there, and then take in the sights. Check out the sights at La Jolla, take in a Raiders game or...

Wait a minute. A vacation from what? Sitting around wondering if he should go on vacation? Would it not make more sense to phone his editors as necessary, watch the Raiders on television and rent a beach movie? It would certainly be cheaper. There was no sense escaping for the sake of escapism. The idea of going somewhere just to get away seemed not only extravagant but...pusillanimous.

Jim strayed into his back yard. He peered at the garden that his grandfather had started a few years earlier, just after returning from Vietnam. Jim did not share his grandfather's sudden interest in home agriculture. The garden was a motley collection of weeds and perennials now. Perhaps he should buy a small tiller and grow some vegetables next spring. In memory of his green- thumbed grandfather. And William Solem, pilot turned farmer. And Pho, farmer's son turned bureaucrat. Hmm. No. He didn't need rows of tomatoes or peas to remind him of those men.

Jim began retracing his grandfather's final steps. His legs carried him toward the pond where he had found Grandpa's body, face down with his hand in the water. Jason McGuire had loved this pond. It was a small spring-fed water hole that acted as a tributary to Gopher Brook via a minuscule surface stream. Two miles downstream Gopher Brook would, in turn, feed the Russian River.

In his final two months Grandpa's health had declined rapidly. His "Skokie" speech in Chicago was the last time Jason McGuire spoke English. After that he would babble in LOOP. Jim remained convinced that the precipice was Grandpa's diagnosis itself. The doctors had spent weeks testing and retesting the old man before delivering their verdict. Jim believed that the deterioration would have been much more gradual if Jason had not been able to place a name on his confusion.

Jason McGuire had always valued above all else his ability to think clearly and independently. The prospect of incontinence, dementia and incomprehensibility must have terrorized him. Grandpa never drank alcohol. He certainly had no interest in drugs. This was a logical, not a moral, stance. He could not understand why people would voluntarily give up their sanity and judgement--even temporarily. The prospect of losing his wits must have been particularly frightening to the old man.

Jason had never talked about the apprehension he must have felt. Instead, he would keep jabbering excitedly, as if he had a great secret to impart but could not remember what it was. He had wanted to see Sarah and Margaret. Jim phoned them with the news of Grandpa's condition and desire to see them but Sarah demurred. She would not be free to travel until her vacation three months later. As it turned out, that was two weeks too late. She phoned her regrets about not being able to make it for the funeral. Sure thing, Sarah. Give my best to Margaret. Is everything going to be okay there, Jim? Oh, sure.

A recurring expression in Grandpa's babbling was "za ka nosu". "Can't choose." "Can't choose." Again and again the old man would mutter "can't choose".

Jason would never have wanted his friends to see him like this. But Grandpa's guests had never required an invitation. They would show up, take one look at their old mentor and make excuses for a quick departure.

"I know you must be embarrassed," Jim had sympathized once, knowing that his grandfather might not understand him.

"I have never been proud of my humility," mumbled the old man, quoting his daughter's book, "but I am often humiliated by my pride."

Jim found the transition to nurse awkward. If he turned his attention to his work Grandpa would wander off. If he focused on his grandfather the man would start raving. Most of the time Jim would humour the old man by pretending to listen. A well-timed "Oh?" or an "Uh-huh" would usually suffice to keep his ward occupied. Grandpa would become depressed whenever he became aware of this inattention. On the day he died Grandpa had been depressed for this reason. He turned to Jim, explained that he was "going out", and meandered into the back yard. The coroner told Jim later that Jason's heart attack would have occurred two hours later, around five in the afternoon. At six thirty Jim went back to collect his grandfather for dinner. The sight of him prostrate on the ground reminded Jim of their visit to the Aztalan museum in Wisconsin. It was only when he knelt down to help his grandfather up that Jim knew that something was wrong.

These memories were becoming increasingly painful. Jim tried once again to put them out of his mind. He sat by the edge of the pond with his back against a birch tree. Its foliage was still lush, enjoying these last few rays of Indian summer sunlight. Grandpa had always insisted that the branches of this birch tree be left alone. He also prohibited anyone from clearing the willow trees and tall grass surrounding the pond.

"Leave this place be!" Jason had insisted. Between Grandpa's conviction and Jim's laziness the fauna had nothing to worry about. The birch's branches extended down to within three feet of the ground, affording shade even during early morning and late evening. Tamarac, willows and tall grasses ringed the pond except for this clear piece of shoreline nearest the house. In spring time bull rushes, crickets and frogs would liven up the place. Now it was serene.

Jim took out his mother's book and began reading. Some of the quotes had been expressions that Grandpa had used. Each passage brought back a different vignette. Jim remembered his reaction when Grandpa informed him that one of his first "adventures" involved the struggle against Prohibition in the late 1930's.

"Grandpa, you're a teetotaller, for Christ's sakes. Weren't you a teetotaller then?"

"I preferred coffee, actually," Jason had replied.

"Yeah, but why would you argue in favour of legalizing something you think is wrong?"

"Free will," explained Jason. "Self-improvement comes from disdaining vice, not from removing it."

"I still don't understand," Jim had persisted, "why you wouldn't want to use the law to encourage people to do something you think is right."

"The law is genius in the hands of fools," Jason had pronounced. "Voting to criminalize a huge percentage of the population does nothing but reduce respect for the law in general."

"Sure, but these people that voted for Prohibition were democratically elected, largely on this very issue."

"Not everyone voted and not everyone cast their vote on this particular issue. In this case, the percentage of drinkers was so large that we had more `criminals' than law-abiding people. But that isn't the point. Even if the temperance people were in a majority Prohibition would have been a bad idea. How many losers does it take to make us win? How do the gods judge us if we are not free to sin?"

The remarks about self-improvement and genius and the verse about losers were all verbatim quotes from Cory McGuire's book. Jim wondered whether the book was drawn from Jason's teachings or vice versa. It was a chicken-and-egg scenario. Considering the fact that Jason's activism predated Cory's birth it seemed most likely that she had drawn heavily from her father's legacy.

A few days ago Jim had finally been able to put his finger on what had disturbed him about some of the prose and free verse in the book. It struck him while he was listening to a radio talk show. It was about the good-cop/bad-cop partnership between Canada and the United States in regard to their dealings with South American countries. A Canadian aid worker was one of the talk show guests. He spoke of his efforts in Nicaragua. Too much inbreeding had hurt the gene pool of Nicaraguan cattle. Aid workers were importing bulls from Canada to invect some new blood. But the Reagan-backed Contra "freedom fighters"--that's what we call our side's terrorists--had struck a medical clinic in a nearby village the night before, killing a nurse and wounding a doctor. A toothless old Nicaraguan man watched the Canadians unloading the bulls and commented: "You North Americans are impossible to understand. The Canadians send us live bulls, the Americans sent us live bullets!"

The old Nicaraguan had been speaking in Spanish. But his comment was much more poignant in English. This gave Jim an idea. He checked his mother's little yellow booklet and confirmed his theory. Much of the prose and all of the "free verse" rhymed when it was translated into LOOP. There were far too many instances of this to be coincidental. Clearly, much of this book had been written originally in LOOP.

It occured to Jim that his mother must have spoken the language. But of course! Grandpa would have taught it to her just as he later taught it to Jim. Jim wondered why this had never dawned on him before. He simply had not given it any thought.

Had Cory written anything else? Jim took a sudden interest in his grandfather's library. He stood up, ducked his head in order to get under the overhanging branches and walked back into the house. He surveyed the books that sat on stacked shelves, covering all four walls of the den. Jim's books sat against the west wall opposite the doorway; Jason's books covered the other three. For the first time in decades Jim actually read their titles. Hmm. A lot of history texts and philosophy books. No surprise there. Some Doonesbury compendia. Grandpa was a great Gary Trudeau fan. Some coffee table picture books of animals, natural wonders and native peoples from around the world. Grandpa was a life long subscriber to National Geographic. Jim raised his eyebrows slightly at seeing science fiction books by Bradbury, Vonnegut and Asimov on the top shelf. Had Grandpa shared Jim's interest in sci-fi? At the end of the third shelf were some books on languages. Jim knew that Grandpa spoke at least seven languages. Gramps was the kind of guy you wanted with you when you were ordering in an ethnic restaurant.

Wait a second...what was this? Jim reached over and plucked a thick binder that stood in the corner. As he extricated it three adjacent books tumbled out onto the floor. He replaced these books and examined the binder. There was no title on it. Jim opened it and found a handwritten manuscript on unlined loose leaf pages. The handwriting was distinctly feminine. Could it be his mother's?

It was the content, not the form, that fascinated Jim. It was a LOOP grammar text! No wonder that it was unpublished. Who would want to read about a language that only two people spoke? And who would waste their time writing one?

First things first. How could he confirm that this was his mother's handwriting? Where could he find a sample for comparison? Jim carried the binder out to the storage shed directly behind the house. Grandpa kept many of Jim's old school workbooks there. Perhaps Cory's were there too. No such luck. Stacks of National Geographics, Jim's old Playboys and Penthouses, Time, Life, piles of Jim's school tests, notebooks and essays. But nothing of Cory McGuire's.

Hold it! Jim dashed back into the house and phoned the hospital in Gopher Brook.

"Could I speak to the records clerk?" he asked the phone receptionist. The records clerk? Gopher Brook General didn't have a records clerk. In fact, the hospital was too small for a records department.

"Where would someone find birth registrations for people born forty two years ago?" Jim inquired. The hospital's limited filing space could only hold birth records for the last five years. While the hospital was, technically, responsible for these records, they were physically stored elsewhere. So, where were they? Try the public archives. And where are these archives? Don't know. Try the mayor's office.

Liz Baker, the mayor's secretary, answered Jim's next phone call. Liz was an acquaintance from Jim's high school days. Birth records? What did Jim want with old birth records? Just a personal matter, Liz. She would have to check "procedure" with the mayor. Jim waited for a moment before Liz came back on the line. No problem, Jim. The old birth registries were kept in the basement of the City Hall. Jim thanked Liz and drove into town. He parked the car, dropped a quarter into the meter and walked into Liz's office.

Liz motioned Jim down a flight of stairs. Yes, the birth records were indeed kept in the basement. What she did not mention was that the basement was in worse repair than the Roman catacombs and had not been cleaned since the Spartacus uprising. One light bulb swung overhead. Jim pulled on the chain and the light blinked on. He saw a pile of mouldy cardboard boxes along one wall, covered under dust and a network of spider webs. These must be the birth records, but how were they organized? Jim opened the box closest to the door. The records inside it were for children born six years ago. Obviously, every year someone would simply open the door and tossed in another box. If this were true Jim should have no difficulty finding the correct box: simply count off thirty six more boxes. He tested his theory. Close, these were for people born the year before him. He had gone to school with most of them. There was John Tait's record. He was the town cop in Gopher Brook now. He was also a regular loser at their Friday night poker games. Liz Baker's birth record. Morley's.

He rummaged through the nearby boxes. Bingo! Here it was! Jim pulled out the paper. Time. Date. Weight. Attending physician. Father's name left blank. A scandal in those days. Something that locals would cluck and gossip about. But what could you expect from heathen trash like the McGuires?

He ran his hands over his mother's signature, awed by the thought that his mother had passed her hand over this same paper, mere hours or days after his birth. Jim opened the binder, laid the certificate down and compared. Jim was no expert on handwriting analysis. He didn't need to be. It was clear enough. The manuscript had not been written by his mother.

Jim sighed. This was all very disappointing. But if his mother didn't write this thing who did? The paper. Jim looked closely at the paper. The birth record was four decades old. Time had not been kind to it. Moisture had made it slightly soggy, removing any crispness. The loose leaf paper of the manuscript was very crisp but somewhat yellowed. Clearly, the manuscript was much older than his birth record. It had been written long before he was born, perhaps even before his mother had been born.

Jim went upstairs and thanked Liz for her help. She peered through her dark rimmed glasses and smiled.

"De nada, Jimmie," she said. "Hey, what are you doing for lunch?"

"Nothing. Uh, how about a burger at Marco's? It's the least I can do for your helping me."

"The very least," concurred Liz as she grabbed her purse and joined him. Elizabeth Baker looked as chipper today as she did when she and Jim attended school together. Liz had been one year ahead of him; high school girls rarely have any contact with boys younger than themselves. Jim and Liz were no exception then. Egged on by a friend, young Jim had asked her out once. She turned him down flat.

As adults the two would run into each other while shopping or attending special events. Liz had been divorced--wasn't everyone?- -about ten years ago. She was putting the first of her three children through university. Her ex-husband, Jerry Baker, lived down east. Rumour had it that Jerry sent child support but no alimony.

Marco's was not haute cuisine. Greasy french fries, fatty burgers and corrosive chile con carne were standard fare. Locals took bets on when the Health Department would close the place down. Some Gopher Brookers called it "Cockroach Haven"; others insisted that no cockroach would be caught dead near it.

Steve Unger was the owner. Steve decided on the name "Marco's" when he bought the place. He hoped that an Italian name might entice customers to order spaghetti or ravioli. An expanded menu might appeal to a wider array of customers. There were no takers. People had been known to survive the burgers and fries; why push your luck with pasta?

Jim ordered a cheeseburger deluxe. Liz played safe, asking for a salad. After all, what could they do to lettuce? Jim looked at his dinner companion. Liz had been the most popular girl in her class at Gopher Brook High. Pretty. Seeing her in a bikini at the Community Center pool made summers worth looking forward to back then. Liz had featured in a lot of wet dreams--including Jim's--in their high school days. Over the years her hair style had changed dramatically. No more did it hang freely over her shoulders. Now it was cut short, barely covering her ears. Very business-like. Professional. Henna took care of any premature gray. It looked a darker shade of brown now. Her brown eyes were still large and round. Jim would often see her jogging around town, trying to keep her weight down. He guessed that she was about ten pounds over her high school weight. Jim should be so lucky! If anything, Liz looked better now than she did when the Gopher Brook carnival committee voted her Miss Gopher Brook.

When Steve placed her salad in front of her Liz made an exaggerated pouncing motion toward it.

"Lettuce prey," she punned.

"Huh?" snorted Steve.

"A joke, Steve," she explained.

"Humour, Steve," elaborated Jim. "An attempt to evoke laughter. Frivolity."

Steve looked blankly at his guests, placed Jim's plate on the table and returned to the counter.

"He's such an idiot!" she spat.

Jim was struck by Elizabeth's vehemence. Liz had been a straight-A student. She did not seem to suffer fools gladly. Jim wondered why she considered intelligence such an accomplishment. And why did she resent those less gifted than herself? Didn't such "idiots" serve to underline her own brilliance by comparison?

Jim had a warm thought. He remembered sitting with Grandpa, watching some smug politician on television.

"The only funny thing about arrogance," the old man had said, "is where we find it."

"What are you smiling about?" asked Liz, bringing Jim back to the present.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all, really."

"A burger, Jim?" she snickered. "You always were a junk food junky, weren't you?"

"What junk food?" defended Jim. "I'll have you know that there are only two foods that have ingredients from all four food groups: pizza and cheeseburgers. Junk food, you say?"

Liz shook her head and giggled. She would have to work at making her companion more comfortable. A change of approach was in order. A show of sympathy, perhaps.

"I haven't seen you since the funeral," she stated. "I'm very sorry about your grandfather. I know how close you two were."

Jim thanked her for these condolences. Liz had despised Grandpa since the debate over Christmas decorations on the grounds of the City Hall. Jim knew crocodile tears when he saw them. Nevertheless, he appreciated the gesture.

At this moment one of the flourescent lights in the diner burnt out. The one beside it began to flicker. Steve cursed and disappeared into the storage room to find another.

"So," Jim asked, "what's new with you?"

"Busy," Liz replied. "The mayor and a bunch of concerned citizens are drafting a welfare reform proposal. I'm helping with some of the language. Of course, we'll have to square it with the other levels of government."

"Welfare reform?"

"Yes. We're pushing to get people off of it. If not, we're going to get them to work for their welfare."

"Work for welfare?" asked Jim incredulously.

"Yeah, what's so strange about that?"

"Oh, I don't know," allowed Jim. "Maybe I'm old fashioned. I always thought if someone worked for it you called it a pay cheque, not welfare."

"Yes, but this would allow these people to make a contribution--"

"By working for the government. Isn't that what you do? Seems the only difference is that these people wouldn't be able to call their contribution a `job'."

"But it isn't a job. It's just a way that the taxpayers can get some value for their welfare money."

"Of course," agreed Jim. "You're right. It wouldn't be a job. If it were we'd have to give them a real wage. And benefits. Who knows? Maybe they'd even become public service union members. You remember the public service union, don't you?"

Suddenly Liz didn't seem so beautiful to him. Perhaps the lighting had changed.

"You know, Jim, you're starting to sound like your grandfather."

Jim recoiled at this remark. Liz had struck a nerve. The two finished their meal in silence.

"Jim," started Liz, hoping to broach a new subject, "I've been wondering why I haven't heard from you lately..."

Jim understood what she meant. There were very few eligible bachelors in Gopher Brook. Since his divorce Jim was fair game.

"Perhaps it's just as well," Jim rationalized. "As you say, you've been very...busy."

Driving the truck back from town Jim considered Elizabeth's observation. She was right. He had sounded like his grandfather. He felt like those people who grow up vowing never to be like their parents and then find themselves echoing their parents' words to their own children. Jim resolved to watch himself in the future. He didn't want to find himself driving to Mexico to argue in favour of equal rights for armadillos.

He resumed his place under the shade of the birch tree. Bernice peered dolefully at him as she stood in the doorway of her doghouse just behind the main house. The evening sun was weaker now. Bernice's winter coat precluded much rambling in this weather. She lapped up some water and strolled over to her master. Jim did not seem to be in a playful mood. Just as well. Bernice sprawled sedately at his side. Jim absent-mindedly stroked his dog with his right hand as he read from the binder.

LOOP grammar had never fascinated him before. He spoke the language well enough to communicate with his grandfather. What else mattered? But these pages that he fingered so reverently were alive with history and mystery. Like the Dead Sea scrolls. Who wrote these lines? And why? Did the writer feel that the language had a life of its own--one that should survive the world's indifference to it?

The section on root words piqued Jim's curiousity. Jim knew that root words were usually used as a tool of ambiguity. Grandpa's use of kiyata to avoid distinguishing destiny from duty was an example. But root words had archaic meanings of their own. Kiyata, for example, would be used in some contexts to mean "identity defined by actions; a raison d'etre stemming from a life's work; roughly, an occupation" according to the manuscript. One of Jason McGuire's oft-used root words was "wintaka". Its polite form, "wintakaga", meant "helper". Its aggressive form, "wintakakoi", denoted "interloper" or "meddler". The root word's meaning was "friend". On the next page he saw his own favourite root word: "nantic". "Nanticaga" was the passive form, connoting indifference. "Nanticakoi", the active form, could be crudely rendered as "tolerant". But a more accurate translation would suggest a respect for other people's freedom and right of self-determination. The root word, "nantic", had no equivalent in English. It referred to the mixture of emotions that parents feel watching their children mature. Feelings of helplessness, pride, obsolescence and accomplishment. A feeling of immortality, knowing that part of you will live on indefinately in your descendants. A feeling of mortality, knowing that yours would be the next generation mourned. Jim shook his head. Why didn't English have a word for such a common feeling?

The manuscript helped Jim understand something that had long eluded him: the quintessentials of LOOP nouns. Each noun had a gaseous, liquid and solid case. Additionally, there was a conceptual case, referring to the object regardless of its present form, and an elemental case, referring to something's constituents. In this manner one word could describe water in any of its forms: saka meant "water" in any state, sika corresponded to "steam", siuka connoted its liquid form, soika stood for "ice", seeka translated to "H20", the hydrogen and oxygen that comprised water. A word like "anger" would be considered "solid" when it was immediate, strong and palpable. Liquid anger came and went, depending upon whether or not one was thinking about the source of the anger or not. Gaseous anger described a mild annoyance, often one which was generalized and whose cause might be difficult to pinpoint. But what were the elements of anger? These components were a matter of agreement among speakers of the language: fear, vindictiveness, and threatened authority.

To a couch potato such as Jim verbs were boring. LOOP verbs were especially dull, since none of them were irregular. Once a person grasped the concept of verb duration there really was nothing of interest there. He skipped this section entirely.

Adverbs and adjectives didn't exist; noun modifiers sufficed. No synonyms. Jim liked the way modifiers could be preceded by a number from zero to seven, specifying degree. "I have zero happiness" would express misery; "I have seven happiness" implied dancing in the streets. He had no idea why LOOP depended upon octal arithmetic. Maybe they didn't count on their thumbs?

Jim marvelled at how the manuscript took readers from total ignorance to fluency in fewer than two hundred handwritten pages. Could he have written anything so concise? Certainly not! Jim closed the binder and contemplated some of its ramifications. Alright: someone had written a brilliant treatise on a subject that could interest no one. So what was troubling him?

He shot to his feet, striking his head against a branch as he did so. He swore as he grabbed his skull. Bumped and bruised but no blood. He refocused on the task at hand. Back to the library. Something was missing. He scoured the shelves, beginning where he had found the binder and working his way downwards. Some more humour books. Collections by Stephen Leacock and Will Rogers.

"Humour is the language of the gods," Jason had muttered in a daze. No time for that now. More philosophy books: Kierkegard, Camus and other existentialists. Psychology books by Lowen, Skinner and Jung. There! Another binder! Jim grabbed it and ripped its cover open.

"Of course," he thought, congratulating himself as he carried his prize back to the birch tree. Bernice stood baffled, wagging her tail impatiently as her master returned. These humans were easily excited!

"Kto skazal `A'..." went the old Russian saying. "Once you've said `A'..." You must say "B". If there was a manuscript on LOOP grammar there must also be a dictionary. After all, what sense would there be learning the correct way to conjugate verbs and decline nouns if one couldn't know the verbs and nouns themselves?

But this dictionary produced as many questions as answers. Jim compared the handwriting. They were different. The dictionary had been written by a male hand. No, not Grandpa's. Jim knew his grandfather's handwriting well enough. The paper was at least as old as that of the grammar binder. One conclusion was inescapable: two different people had toiled for months--perhaps years--to produce manuscripts that couldn't possibly interest anyone.

"Amateur authors write for themselves," Grandpa had once told him when they were discussing Jim's writing career. "Professionals write for their readers."

The two who authored these manuscripts were definitely amateurs by that definition. Amateurs in the finest sense of the word. People who wrote because they loved what they were doing. Maybe it was a catharsis. Maybe a challenge. Maybe a sense of destiny. Or duty. Maybe just kiyata.

Jim looked at Bernice and laughed.

"You must think we humans are idiots!" he said aloud, petting her long coat.

And you might be right, he thought.

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