Word Is…

Word Is…

‘The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.’ Prov. 18:21

Ulysses finished his grocery list and saw ink on his fingers.

“Damn! Running late… Stop sabotaging…”

About to interview for a writing job, he wanted to look professional. ‘Would inky fingers impress…?’ He hadn’t had a paying gig for months. Pay or not, he always wrote stories, blurbs, whatever. His many novels, some completed and all unpublished, filled a shelf in his study.

Friends always saw him with a pen and note pad.

He washed his hands and took the list for after the interview. Hands still damp, he flicked the light switch. A spark flashed and he fell back with a shout. The list fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and went to the counter.

“Almost forgot…”

In the gloom, he added ‘potato chips’ to the list. Setting the pen down, the sound of crumpled packaging drew his attention. Flicking the light on revealed a new bag of chips.

“Where’d that come from?”

He looked at the list with his addition at the bottom.

“Can’t have too many chips…”

He wrote a ‘3’ next to the last entry. Two more bags of chips materialized on the counter.

Ulysses stared. He had no words.

Inspired, he added ‘beer’ to his list. With a soft clink, a six pack of his favorite brand settled on the counter.

“Hmmm…”

Ulysses carefully copied everything on his list. As fast as he could write, the items appeared upon his counter from nowhere. He extended the list with foods he rarely afforded. He stopped writing when the containers of food began spilling onto the floor.

Ulysses grinned, ‘This is too much! Too good! A one-off? Only me? Or the new state of things? Taking home delivery to another level… Poor stores…’

He stowed the perishables.

His parrot, Crackers, called out from the other room. “I know you are. But what am I?”

“Oh, no…”

He realized he was late for his interview. He called the office. The secretary answered.

“Hi. This is Ulysses Pratt. I have an appointment this morning…”

“Sorry you couldn’t make it.”

“I can make it. I’m making it. A little late. Be there in twenty…”

“We’re booked up today. Call next week to reschedule.”

The line disconnected. Despondent, Ulysses slumped into a chair.

“At least I have food.”

He felt tempted by the potato chips. Shaking it off, he sprang up, ran into his study and sat at his computer. The room was decorated in early Halloween, up for the past four years.

“I’m a writer, damn it. I need to write.”

He opened up the file to his latest opus, ‘The Crush,’ and began typing.

‘She entered the room, smiling the perfect smile. She was exquisite. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.’

A sound drew Ulysses attention. There stood a woman he’d never met, smiling. She was stunning.

Head swiveling, he glanced at his computer and back. He gasped, “Wow!”

She said, “I knew you would say that.”

“But…”

“You asked for beautiful. Am I enough?”

Ulysses struggled to speak.

She leaned in. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a complete bitch?”

He blinked.

Her laughter drove him from the building.

Wandering aimlessly, he mulled over the morning’s events. Ulysses wondered if this could enhance his income.

Always juggling bills, he admitted writing was not his profession. He’d never made enough to live on. Better at getting hired than keeping the job, he’d lost several newspaper gigs. His last boss told him he was ‘too honest.’

‘So, I’m honest, and not a journalist. But money or not, I’m a writer.’

Even as a child, he always wrote. Denying that identity was inhuman, barbaric, cruel, heartless, or vicious.

He went to the newspaper office to demand his interview. Ulysses wouldn’t give up.

Stepping out of the elevator, he approached the receptionist.

Blowing on freshly painted nails, she looked up and smiled at the young man standing before her.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, Ulysses Pratt. Here for my interview for staff writer. Sorry, I’m a little late.”

She looked at the schedule and pouted.

“I’m sorry. The position has been filled.”

Ulysses leaned in. “That can’t be. I never got to speak with anyone.”

She smiled without warmth.

He said, “Wait. You don’t know me. My writing has power. It makes things happen.”

She pointed at the schedule. “The position has been filled.”

“You didn’t give me a chance.”

“Ahem… You missed the appointment time.” She seemed to sing as she turned away. “Thank you…”

“Wait… I’ll write you a story. What do you need? I’ll make it happen. You don’t get it. I write it, it comes true. Before your eyes. Give me a chance. Want potato chips? You have no idea…”

She picked up her phone.  

A new song, “Security?”

Ulysses backed away. “Your loss, lady. Give you my word. I’ll be back.”

He ducked into the elevator.

‘What’s happening? I could use my new found ability for good. Not needing to write for money, I could write for life! Imagine… no more editors! Use words to help people? Like ‘money…’ ‘Gold…’ Or ‘power’? Well applied words could transform everything. The world!’

The word ‘power’ resonated for Ulysses. He could write a story about the receptionist who cancelled his interview. How would she cope if she forgot shorthand? Suffered vertigo in the elevator? Broke a nail? ‘I could write that…’ He had to laugh.

‘Or ‘gold.’ Sell positive affirmations etched onto gold pendants.’

He entered his favorite café and stood in line to order.

‘Need to be careful. Gold’s heavy. Needs storage. And security. Could always get robbed. Can always conjure up more… if I don’t get myself killed. Better to start with paper.’

He pulled out his notepad and pen. ‘My wallet is filled with paper money.’

Opening his wallet, he found dozens of foreign currency notes.

Grimacing, he nodded, ‘Specificity is a virtue.’

He wrote, ‘My wallet is filled with dozens of 100s and twenties, American.’

He sighed with relief. “Ah, much better. This could work… Maybe even pay some bills.”

With that pressure off, he now felt an urgency to up his performance. Ulysses contemplated the power of words.

A teacher once told him God created the universe with a single command, ‘Light be.’

He thought, ‘Did God know what He was doing when He spoke this hot mess into being? What was he thinking? That word had serious repercussions. Couldn’t take it back. What if He talked in his sleep? Creating a universe with one word is impressive. Talk about economy of expression… the ultimate poem. BAM!’

He ordered his coffee and paid.

‘What am I supposed to do? One word and ‘POW!’ I can’t compete. Don’t want to. Not my style…’

Ulysses scanned the café filled with people on their laptops. He found an open seat.

‘They have no idea who sits among them.’ He thought, ‘But why me? Who am I? No invitation, He didn’t ask at all. How dare He make demands on a humble subject? I’ve got plans…’

Ulysses always loved writing fantasy and sci-fi with big conflicts.

‘But if a few words on paper changes everything, I need to tone it down. Enough with murder and mayhem… No more asteroids colliding with earth. Or worse.’

He felt unable to put pen to paper for fear of wreaking havoc.

The writer’s life is solitary, but not lonely. Ideally, he populates created worlds with vivid characters creeping out from his dreams.

Ulysses always felt words were mere sounds. Meaning was coincidental and idiosyncratic. A print out on his wall read, ‘create a symphony from the roar of crashing waves.’

‘But creating literal worlds is above any writer’s pay grade.’

A guy sat at the next table. His girlfriend brought their coffees. Extending his arms he sang a brief aria to her. They laughed warmly.

The guy saw Ulysses watching. “Hey… What’s up?”

Ulysses nodded. “Hearing you sing made me think…”

They nodded. Eyes on her boyfriend, the woman sat.

Ulysses said, “Anyone can scrawl notes upon a musical scale. But imagine generating the infinity of an opera house. Everything… the stage, the wings and flies, galleries of seats, the orchestra…”

The woman giggled. The guy shook his head. “Wait… Wings and flies? You talking about bugs?”

“No, no… You know, off stage. And overhead… Anyway, fill those seats with an audience, each with memories and sensations. Have them enjoy the actors performing before set pieces. That would take artifice into another realm. Where would it stop?”

The woman pointed to an open table down the way. The guy nodded as they stood.

He said, “Hey, cool, man. Catch you later.”

Ulysses spoke to their receding backs. “And to create life, or one life, however small, with a word? Who can imagine such a daunting responsibility?”

He shrugged and sipped his coffee.

‘Every word carries the potential to derail… no, to change things. Improve…’

He no longer had interest in speculating about calamities. Ulysses once wrote about a suicide pact between two young lovers. Later, hearing about a rash of teen suicides stopped him from writing anything for weeks. He felt responsible despite the fact no one had published his piece.

Likewise, his story about a lost pistol predated a series of shootings. Attributing it to coincidence struck him as lazy.

Nowadays, Ulysses carefully chose each word, lest he get indigestion from having to eat them. The potential damage created by simply putting pen to paper paralyzed him. Near despair, he saw no escape from the ever present need for perfection.

Ulysses wondered, ‘would changing my name alter my identity? Would I embrace my true self? Or become someone else altogether? Were I Gulliver, and not Ulysses, would I embark on the same journey? Or discover other destinies?’

Walking home, he observed but took no notes. He had countless words but didn’t dare write one.

Ulysses entered his apartment and sensed a presence. ‘Is that smoke? Incense?’

Crackers said, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Stepping into his bedroom he found the beautiful woman from that morning, lolling on his bed.

He said, “What are you doing? You can’t be here. Go!”

“Oh, hi. I wondered what happened to you.” She looked at her hand rolled cigarette. Smoke drifted lazily. “Don’t worry. This is clove. Nothing illegal.”

“I don’t care. It will go with you.”

“Thanks for leaving the groceries. You know how to live.”

“Look… I don’t know you. Or why you’re here. But you have to leave.”

She pouted. “Don’t you think I’m beautiful? You said…”

“I said get out. This makes no sense.”

While talking, Ulysses picked up her clothes, purse, and dirty plates. He carried them to the kitchen.

Returning, he said, “About a hundred years ago, a guy named Omar Khayyam wrote, ‘the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.’ He didn’t say the finger writes and creates havoc. Or writes and then moves into a stranger’s apartment.” He looked at her. “I don’t even know your name.”

She reached for him. “Ginger…”

He maneuvered her out of the bedroom. Their trip down the hall looked like a syncopated tango.

“I don’t care… You ever hear of cause and effect? Or that correlation is not causation? Why is this on me? I didn’t invite you here.”

“Hey, I think we need to talk.”

“Did you never hear of Occam’s razor?”

“Who? What? They a band?”

Ulysses could not believe her ignorance.

“Yeah, they sang ‘Time to go.’ Sing it on your way to the street.”

 “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m telling you to leave. Exit. Vamoose… Get out!”

“I don’t understand…”

“Maybe the police can explain it. You need to go. Now.”

Acting miffed, Ginger collected her things and left.

Ulysses sat at his computer. Afraid to upset the status quo, his fingers froze on the keyboard. Writer’s block settled in, with no detours at hand.

Ulysses once saw reading a book as a sophisticated form of divination. Applied synchronicity. A Rorschach. Interpreting tea leaves in print.

He wanted to write like before, without triggering awful supernatural effects. But his efforts to avoid the destruction of innocents came out flat. They lacked conflict and were less engaging than this morning’s shopping list.

When Ulysses wrote about needing to ‘take baby steps’ he spent the next hour careening off furniture and falling down while trying to get to the bathroom.

Ulysses tried everything to escape the curse he felt enveloping him. Any writing, on his computer, with a crayon or a ball point pen… produced the same outcome. No longer fiction, what he wrote came true.

Knowing no foreign languages, he wrote in pig Latin. You don’t want to know how that turned out.

Obsessively, Ulysses weighed the nuance of each word’s destructive potential. By using a pencil, he discovered he could erase key words before things got too bad.

Fear took over. Writing nothing felt better than risking monsters descending on his city. Why could the less talented write with impunity? It wasn’t fair.

Keeping his future stories in mind without committing them to paper took a toll. Unable to sleep, and feeling cursed, Ulysses spent hours wandering dark streets. Words flowed but he let them pass unnoted.

Fighting depression, he had a recurring thought. ‘Call it thief or friend, time takes it all. Nothing restores time’s erasures.’ Ulysses would write it someday, with indelible ink.

Desperate, he developed a double-blind system of runes to store essential story elements.  When free to write, he hoped to decipher them and begin again. Someday.

Reaching for his dictionary, Ulysses paused and pulled his thesaurus from the shelf.

‘Gotta be smart. Libraries of books filled with words… out of my reach. Obsolete…’

He was determined to never again write the words: terror, buy, possess, sell, own, destroy, fear, anger, hate, hunger, shoot, kill, want, riot, steal… No more conjuring these into reality. Too risky.

But ‘peace, trust, hope, help, share, give, love, brotherhood…’ were different.

He thought, ‘I’d never need anything else if I wrote those into being.’

He remembered a saying by the medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich. Its meaning had intensified.

Writing it… over and again, he thought, ‘Let this manifest…’

‘All will be well. And all manner of things will be well.’