Monkho seated himself at the back of a soon to be crowded bus and started his commute home. With his work and home on the two edges of the linearly sprawling city, it would take two hours. But he often took solace in the fact that he claimed seats easily because he got on at stops close to each end of the route. It also helped that he had left work early today.
A call came in. It was his mother. She wanted to know how things were. Monkho wanted to share everything with her, but, not wanting to bother the fellow passengers, he reported in curt words that everything was good. His mother asked him if he was taking care of his health. Yes, yes, he was.
The bus doors hissed open and people spilled in and out. An elderly couple sitting in front of him talked about rain tomorrow. “Finally,” the old man said, pointing at the naked bushes on the road median. “The rain will be a boon to these plants.”
The woman countered with, “I’m sure they get watered by the city,” placing a hand on the man’s forearm.
The bus chugged along the newly built highway. Monkho texted his brother, “I’ve wired you the money.” He continued typing, “Don’t expect any more because I’m done. I expect you to pay me back after you graduate and get a job,” but erased the text before hitting Send.
His phone buzzed. “Not needed anymore. I’ve wired the money back to you,” a text from his brother said. “Sorry you’re getting fired. If you need to talk, I’m here for you… with Jesus.”
Monkho smiled, and replied with, “I fear I’m too old to be proselytized. I’d rather go to a monastery to lift my spirits.”
So, he did have the money to cover at least one month’s raise. He wondered if he should go along with his charade of all this being a surprise, and buy his wife something.
Then he realized that he had to pay Sanaa back. But then, he thought, aren’t I going to be fired soon? Plus, Sanaa had his cool new idea. He could make the BatAaruul product and export it to European countries.
He unlocked his phone, and speed dialed a number. The contact name read, “My Coral💚”. The phone rang, and rang, and rang.
—
That night, Monkho dreamed of sitting in the conference room with a small red-and-blue box on the table in front of him.
He opened it and marveled at the packaging, and the logo of a large-jawed baatar, with big scimitar-like letters forming the word “BatAaruul” in the center, with “No sugar, just protein, fat, and nutrients” scrawled below it.
Inside, a plastic wrapper contained a stack of five horseshoe-shaped curds. He thought back to the time when he was young and new, and proposing ideas to the company seniors seemed daunting and scary. He had come a long way, he thought.
There were his colleagues around the table, like that day, each cooing and laughing while unboxing a BatAaruul.
Monkho placed a piece of the hard curd into his mouth. It fit into his mouth like a mouth guard. “See?” he said to his colleagues, “just like a Mongol warrior.”
He saw himself flashing a creamy curd-cover-for-teeth smile from a third-person perspective, as one does in a dream. The vague and nondescript acquaintances around the table were in various stages of putting an aaruul guard in their mouth.
Monkho felt proud.
But then a dull pain hit his gums. Due to the mold’s tight fit, the hard curd was chafing against his gums and teeth, afflicting him with increasingly sharp pain.
Disappointed, he decided to pull the curd out. It didn’t budge.
To his shock, he realized the aaruul was stuck to his upper teeth. Monkho tugged at the mold, first with one hand, and then both, his fingers crowded at the slippery, slobbering edge of the curd.
Looking around, he could see his co-workers whimpering and mewling, eyes narrowed and mouth downturned like the Tragedy Mask.
Monkho yanked at the aaruul with all the strength he could muster until it flew loose from his mouth and clattered onto the table.
Immediately, his mouth felt free as fresh air hit his teeth, but his relief was soon replaced with more dismay when he saw that most of his upper teeth were missing. The mold on the table had a curved array of jagged protrusions, each pair presumably the roots of his extracted teeth.
Blood trickled from his mouth like warm wine. Terrified, he looked at his colleagues and saw the same scene. Everyone was looking at him with gaping bloody mouths, angry and despairing, growling the same line.
“You,” they said, “you thought of this stupid idea.”
Transadaptation Volume 6 – Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: A Regular Train Trip – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
February: Growing Up – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
March: Mess – Veronika Groke (Austria)
April: The Roads We Take – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
May: Need – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
June: “Next Sunshine” – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
July: Intentions – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
August: Planet Kyiv – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
September: Feeling like a Fool – Ulrike Bergmeister (Germany)
October: Stories of Outcast Souls – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
November: Ronaldinha – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
December: Aimlessly – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Background photo: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – From above – Altansukh (Unsplash)
Left to right at top: 1. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – The high rises – Anonymous (Shutterstock); 2. Erdenet, Mongolia – A city street – Pecoid (Shutterstock); 3. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – An autumn day – Munkhtevshin (Unsplash)
Left to right in middle: 1. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – A winter weekday – Anonymous (Shutterstock); 2. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – From the car – Keleny (Shutterstock)
Left to right at bottom: 1. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – Residential highrises – Seewhybee (Shutterstock); 2. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – In the capital – Anonymous (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed