Obfuscate by Matthew Purdy

They lie together talking about language. “English sometimes makes things clear,” he says. “But it sometimes...” He reaches for his phone, translates from Korean. “Obfuscate.” He says it like a first kiss, like a hand clasping another hand for the first time. The rounded knuckle of the f doesn't quite fit into the palm of the vowel. He tries again. Already the word is more at home on his lips.

Already the word seems inevitable.

Her fingers wriggle between his. Her thumb nestles into the soft valley at the base of his own. She presses into the softness. No one else has ever done this, and she's done it ever since that afternoon he didn't tell her he liked her, but she heard it.

“Obfuscate.” Her free hand finds her own phone, translates into Japanese. “Ahh.” When she says it, it sounds different from how he said it. Maybe that's how you're supposed to say it? These words don't belong to either of them. They're strange vegetables grown in foreign soil. “I don't like the word,” she says. It's bitter and tough. It would stink up your kitchen.

He asks, “How else would you say it?”

She doesn't know. As she says it again, it begins to have a strange rightness. She doesn't mind the resistance to her teeth, the aftertaste. She squeezes his hand. There are so many words. They're the constellation of birthmarks on his back, one she traced over and over with her fingernail the first night silence was enough. In the morning, the red marks spelled a word neither of their languages could decipher.

ABOUT:

Matthew's work has appeared in journals such as One Story, the Mississippi Review, the Iron Horse Literary Review, and the Mid-American Review. He received a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Texas Tech University. Currently, he lives, writes, and teaches in Boston.

EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: Reece Miller - Lost in Translation