The Words

by Norman Stapleman

The words are no good; we decide to change them. We divide them by category: Leamus takes the verbs, the adverbs, and the hard-sounding words. Paolo takes the adjectives, the dark words, the pompous words, and the words whose meanings are unclear. Thule takes the prepositions, the articles, and the words about far off places and unpleasant events. I take the nouns, the clever words, and the words that sound foolish when pronounced near children.

We work for weeks. We twist the words and decorate them. We stick them together and make combinations like "easelcheese" and "fatherheart." We take some of the words and reassemble them to our liking: "cradle" becomes "dracle" and "poultice" becomes "puelotic."

We change some of the words altogether: "persevere" becomes "hegemony;" "ascertain" becomes "jerboa;" "irony" becomes "fish."

We dedicate ourselves to spreading the new words through the world. We write them on cards and send the cards to the mayors of twenty cities. We agree to speak only these and not to fall back into old habits.

"Good wagon, saint Leamus," I stab.

"Fleece bonnet, your raptitude," she absconds. "The dance is sacked; skies argue over barny plovers."

"Kentucky, your leaps, basilfern, and warm pigs in martyrs of twine."

"Thus sunderfood, eastheads with long pooches -- and I marble thaxter with flindermass and relish."

In time, the world responds. Some adopt our words and live satisfying lives. Some fail, and retreat into toil, misery, and false absolution. Some, by foolish whim, rearrange the words and once again separate all people into tribes and delegations. We tax one another, we gossip, we plunder each other's stores. We drift apart and form nations. The wars begin and history turns like a tired old wheel.

We'll try again. This time, each one of us gets a word, one word, to guard like a jewel. To make sentences, we'll join arm-in-arm. To write books, we'll gather in colonies. Every one of us will have a unique nature and purpose. Every one of us will be useful and wanted by others. The world will have meaning again.

Norman Stapleman has written fiction and poetry for the small press. This is his second publication in Writer Online. We published his short piece, "Honey, I Said," in May of this year.