Limitations

“They’re at it again.”
Four words that had become all too commonplace a greeting met Aubrey’s ears as she closed the door to the house she shared with her three best friends. This time she was greeted by Leopold. He didn't exactly live there but he was Tobias’s best friend, so he spent an inordinate amount of time at the house. Not that Aubrey minded.
“What’s her problem this time?” Curious eyes followed the taunts and insults being hurled across the living room as though they were watching a tennis match that were taking place inside the house.
“This time?” Leopold got up to join Aubrey as they walked up stairs to her room. “Same as last time, and the time before that. Oh, and the time before that."
“He won’t say what she wants to hear from him?”
“Nope,” Leo grinned.
Aubrey let out a groan, “Why not?”
“Why won’t he say it?” the man tilted his head, as if he weren’t quite sure where to start. “Well, let me say this… That is to say… It’s not a hard word to say but context is extremely important, particularly for Tobias. So he can’t.”
“He chooses his words too carefully.”
Leo smiled at her tart rejoinder, “Yeah, but do you know why?”
His friend couldn’t say that she did.
“Words have power. Without words, there is nothing. Well, that’s not true, but there is no meaning. Ideas exist in an abstract plane, images too. Whatever you see has a shape, has a form, but is merely a concept in abstract. Until you name it, until you give it meaning.”
“Right.” Aubrey nodded as she placed her backpack down next her bed and floppd into her rather over sized beany chair. “Meaning is given as you speak, because everyone views everything differently. There is no “re”presentation, as Stewart Hall says. Only the meaning you give something during the presentation. Meaning doesn't exist beforehand.”
“Exactly,” Leo chose his seat at the edge of her bed. “In other words, it doesn't matter how he feels if he can’t express himself using the proper words. The feelings are just… meaningless.” He frowned slightly, “Although I’m not sure why. She knows how he feels so the entire commotion is just, I don’t know, a tad pointless?”
This time it was Aubrey's turn to smile, “You would say that.”
“Huh?”
“It’s because she knows how he feels and that he won’t say it.”
“I’ll take you’re word for it.”
“You’ll have to.”
The two friends shared a smile.
“Anyway,” Leo concluded, “All that leads to what he can’t say because he’s afraid of what it means. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it is, but the implications of speaking the word aloud, of giving it a form and shape, scares him.” He paused, as though reconsidering the verity of what he had just said. “Or maybe he just finds a simple four letter word too limiting.”
“And?”
“And that might be closer to the truth. Because just as words have power to explain a concept and bring it to life, they are just a capable of lmiting the meaning. 6000 languages in the known world and not translates literally into another. Sometime there just aren’t words to express the depth of emotion we feel.”