This Is Going To Hurt
Geoffery was only twenty-two when he said goodbye to his family and moved to Singapore. He had recently graduated from college, but his fiancé had broken off their engagement, his job search was not going well, and he found himself without many prospects. When he saw the exotic sheen of the Singapore nightlife on a reality show he was binge-watching, he decided he would move. Geoffery’s bailiwick was art history, so his plan had been to teach English in the short-term while he looked for a more suitable job opening. However, he found the work more challenging and rewarding than he expected. He felt that way to begin with anyway.
At the end of his first month, his star student, Alex, told him in Malay, “Sayah dah kenal ibu suci awak.” When he asked Alex what it meant, he smiled and said, “I bow before you in sacred respect.” Geoffery felt great pride that day, though he had a terrible hangover. The social-exploration of his new city, while just the excitement he had been looking for, was not without its price. Just two weeks after that day, Geoffery learned that his former fiancé was pregnant with her new boyfriend’s baby. He was an acquaintance of Geoffery’s, but he told the story as though they had been best friends.
What had been harmless fun in the Singapore nightlife became a downward spiral of self-medication for Geoffery after that. After getting really drunk one night, he was getting some food at KFC when he overheard a girl ordering her 3-piece value meal “inside out” and laughed so hard he fell to the floor and was told he had to leave. Starting the following day, he began sneaking the phrase into his lessons on common restaurant dialogue, claiming it meant the person wished to eat in the restaurant rather than taking the food home. It was a relatively innocent misdirection that he found very amusing. He did feel a little guilty about it, but when at the end of the week, his students said, “Sayah dah kenal ibu suci awak,” he felt proud of both his teaching and his mischief.
The following week, he began introducing more invented phrases and alleged slang to the class. He would imagine his students travelling to America and speaking excellent English, but causing confusion when they refer to cups as “buckets” and napkins as “blankets.” It gave him a sick satisfaction. He wished he could be there to hear one of them address the cashier at Burger King as “Your Excellency.” He had a difficult time keeping a straight face when teaching them a cool way to tell people you’re having a good day is to say, “I’m really gobbling the candy!” In his final week of teaching, one of Geoffery’s students told him an American friend of his had never heard that phrase and suggested Geoffery was messing with the class. Luckily, he was able to convince them that it was more of a regional thing used in the Midwest, but he worried he had taken things too far.
The following weekend, while out on the town, Geoffery bumped into a police officer, knocking him to the ground. The police officer, having very little patience for drunk Americans, got angry and began to place Geoffery under arrest. Geoffery pleaded for mercy, shouting desperately, “Sayah dah kenal ibu suci awak!” The police officer became enraged, hitting and kicking Geoffery and dragging him to the police car by his hair. Terrified and panicked, Geoffery shouted the phrase again and again.
When it came time for his public caning weeks later, many of his students came out in support, standing front and center. Geoffery looked to his favorite student, Alex, and pleaded for him to help. Alex looked at Geoffery scornfully and said, “Sayah dah kenal ibu suci awak. Do you know what that means?” Geoffery shook his head in confusion and answered, “I bow before you in sacred respect. I learned that from you and the other students!” Geoffery’s students began to laugh. “It means I have known your sacred mother,” Alex explained. “You’re not the only one who can make a joke. Maybe now you will show US a little respect. Either way, it is time for you to bow before us. This is really going to hurt. Someone get teacher a blanket to wipe his tears.”
--Written for “Fast Food or Drive-Thru Dialogue”