Some flash fiction based on my observations of toddlers chatting with each other. Seeing as how English is an evolving language influenced (it seems) more by usage than precedent, I couldn't help but imagine a world where the English we speak today is no longer in vogue.
Sarah thumbed through the dog-eared novel that she had found in the free bin in the used book store, stopping at a random page. “Have you readed this?” she asked Danny. “It’s so cool!”
“I don’t know why you like those old books,” Danny said, rolling her eyes. “They’re dumb. Millennial English is the worst. And we don’t talk like that anyway. Millennial English is so much more elegant.”
Sarah ignored her friend, picking a short passage from the book and then reciting it out loud. “As he put down the shell, he drove it into the ground. The conch felt cool and salty against his palm, like the ocean had become a thing that he could hold in his hand. Without another word, he dove into the sea and swam from the shore…
“Ugh! Stop it!” Danny snapped. “I can’t stand the sound of it. It doesn’t even make sense!” She snatched the book from Sarah’s hands and scanned the page. “Here, I’ll fix it: As he putted down the shell, he drived it into the ground. The conch feeled cool and salty against his palm, like the ocean haved become a thing that he could hold in his hand. Without another word, he dived into the sea and swimmed for the shore… There, I fixed it."
Sarah plucked the old book from her friend’s hand. “Stop it. You ruin it when you readed it like that…” she paused for a moment, thinking about what she had said. “I mean ‘when you read it like that’,” she added with a smile.
“Bleh,” Danny said, screwing up his face. “I don’t know why you like that old stuff so much. It sound ugly. Anyway, let’s go eat. I’m so hungry. I haven’t eated since this morning.”
“That sound good,” Sarah said, shoving the novel into her backpack.
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