The perfective aspect is used to describe an action as a simple and complete whole.

Xenia presses her palms onto the chiffon scarf that partially covers the wobbly, secondhand table. She casts her glance mysteriously past the nervous client facing her and pretends to concentrate.

The client is a young woman between the ages of 19 and 24. Her hair is golden blonde, or jet black, or brown with dyed auburn highlights. Rarely is she Belgian, and if she is, she’s not from Brussels. She’s on a gap year, or an international exchange, or a language course, or an internship.

Xenia returns her attention to the girl’s face. If there’s a friend with her, the friend giggles.

‘American, yes? From Florida? No. A bit further north. Louisiana. New Orleans.’

Tulane University’s Brussels programme is conveniently housed a few doors down from Xenia’s office building. It has been the unwitting provider of about two-thirds of her income for the past five years. 

Xenia waits for evidence of skepticism to reemerge on her client’s face. Then she allows her own face to soften sympathetically. ‘Ah. How long ago did he break up with you?’

It’s never less than a week, never more than a month. Xenia keeps the Kleenex on the empty chair beside her, out of sight. She produces one after another, like scarves from a top hat, and waits as the young American dabs her eyes.

---

Xenia’s not Belgian either, or American. She’s Greek, and she’s not a psychic. She has a PhD in linguistics and hired out this office space to do freelance translation and interpretation.

She’d not had time to remove the brass plate advertising ‘intuitive readings’ when her first customer walked through her door in the autumn of 2016.

‘Are we going to get back together soon?’ the distraught student had demanded.

‘I don’t know, I really don’t have any way of knowing.’

‘Will I meet someone else?’

‘I’m sure you will if you give it enough time. I’m sorry I can’t help. I don’t know where she’s moved to, the woman who used to give readings, I’ll check to see if she’s left her card somewhere.’

Xenia scoured the empty office, looking for some clue as to where the absent psychic might now be located. Her visitor leaned on the doorframe, shaking and gasping with her sobs.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m not a psychic. I’m a linguist.’

‘A what?’

‘Languages. I’m an interpreter. I’ll see if I can find a box of Kleenex.’

What she found instead was a box of crystal balls—more like large glass marbles, she supposed, but perfectly clear.

‘It’s just that I never thought he’d leave me. Like, I actually thought we were going to get married. He was supposed to come visit me in Europe. I was thinking he might propose in Paris. And then he sends me a text to say he’s not coming… and that he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. Like, what? Five minutes without me and he doesn’t want to be with me anymore? I heard he’s screwing my old roommate.’

---

Xenia tells a version of this story now to her new visitor, who affirms her accuracy with enthusiastic, wide-eyed nods. ‘Yes, yes!’ she says. ‘That’s exactly it. How did you know? He broke up with me by text. And you say he’s sleeping with a friend of mine? That’ll be Charlotte. I knew it!’

Xenia waits for the inevitable next question. 

‘Do you think we’ll get back together?’

Xenia responds with the same answer she gave her first accidental client, all those years ago.

‘Would you like to know what the real trouble is? Your language. The English language lacks a perfective aspect.’

This is the cue for the sodden tissue to ease itself away from its watery wound, for the sunlight of curiosity to pierce through the clouds of grief.

‘A perfect what?’

‘A perfective aspect. It’s a way of expressing that something is finished, complete, a perfect unity with no further entry point.’

Xenia now keeps the crystal balls handy, next to the box of Kleenex. She produces one now. She holds it in her open palm, making sure it catches the light. She waits for her hesitant visitor to take it from her.

‘You loved him. It’s over now. You can look at your relationship in the way that you can look at that crystal ball. You can even look into it. But you can’t experience it again. There’s no way back in.’

An epiphanic beam shines on the face of her grateful client, who takes the proffered sphere, tucking it carefully into her handbag. There’s a spring in her step as she leaves the room, a renewed confidence in her bearing.

When Xenia moves to return the crystal balls to their place in the cupboard, one drops to the floor. She moves onto hands and knees to find it.

‘Perfective aspect,’ she muses as her fingers locate the smooth orb and retract it from its hiding place under the bookcase. She’s struck with a new thought.

Maybe every grammatical phenomenon has some material counterpart, some clearly defined structure, some recognisable shape. Maybe they have healing properties, some strange capacity to reshape someone’s life, to translate their experience into something new.

Xenia grasps the sphere, brings it safely back to her. She holds it in her open, reverent palm, still on her knees, awestruck.

---

Would you like to know more about this story? Watch the video I made about it.