What if you were unable to speak?

You have the power to speak and are very voluble when given a chance. But for some mysterious reason you decided one fine day that speech was unnecessary. It is not like you were out of words. You had hundreds of them all queued up right at the tip of your tongue. They were eager to get out bustling around in absolute frenzy. But you had decided otherwise. It was very clear when the day dawned that you thought speaking was not required. Speech was passé!

Words would not roll of your tongue because you put a little bump that they had to cross. The obstacle was high enough so that they could not slide over. They came slipping down until they piled up one over the other until they formed a barricade. Each word stayed where it was supposed to and formed a wall. A wall that was insurmountable not because it was steep. In fact it was the exact opposite all slippery and threatening. But the fact remained that the words could not clamber over it.

The problem with words is that they are notional. They arrive when they are not required and freeze when they are needed the most. Do you have a problem with that? Would it help you even if you did? It would not matter because they are the most peculiar of creatures. They flow like water when they are excited which is pretty much most of the time. But the fact remains that when they get all worked up and nowhere to go then they let you know it by not showing up at all.

Why they are most insensitive to your needs and can be downright stubborn sometimes.
They tie your tongue into clever little knots rendering you unable to speak like the sly little devils they are!

Just the other day I had a parlay with one of these words and I can assure you that it was not pleasant. I was ready to blurt it out but it refused. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a word that you have given birth to and nourished in your brain, rebelling against your very edict? It was unthinkable but it happened anyway. I wanted to say it and it danced around on my tongue for a while. But it did not slip out and caused me all kinds of problems. Here I was all wound up from a little tiff I had and the only response that could I come up with had a mind of its own. The little imp stole my moment leaving me impotent and at the mercy of my opponent who in true fashion mistook my silence for weakness. Indeed, his words seemed mighty cooperative for they flowed in a vituperative stream towards me and I had no chance of evading them at all.

That is when I started to mull this over and came up with a decision. I had to free up my tongue and only way I knew was to soak myself in the most prurient of libations which usually did the trick. When my mind was hazy and the spirit levitated then the words would automatically lose their strength. They would let go of my tongue and jump out of my mouth like rats deserting a sinking ship. I knew this from experience and the funny fact was that they knew it too. But that never seemed to teach them anything for they always yielded although with poor grace.

I forthwith poured myself some celestial lubricant and proceeded to dispense with it rather generously. It ran down my throat leaving a certain golden glow that usually had a devastating effect on the words. But tonight was different and you know how I knew that? I could not speak a single word after countless drams of the glistening liquid. There was a growing horror within me that spoke of impending catastrophes if the situation continued. Usually the foul smelling ones would come out first and fly at people in their typical buccaneering style. They would take no prisoners and give no quarter. But today was different and they remained in quarantine.

Do you ever have the feeling that the words inside of you have been bottled up for ages? Well, I did have it that day and there was no apparent reason for it. One by one they began to materialize deep inside of me. Some of them were small and others irreverently big. I felt like a soda bottle that was just dying to pop. The only problem was that the right bottle opener just did not seem to be lying around. It is a rather peculiar feeling to have your thoughts race on and leave behind a pile of words that could never be mined. These words could be crawling inside you for days without any recourse of escape. They could keep trying to find a way out until one day they decide to just give up.

That is the piquant situation that you will find yourself one of these days and let me assure you that it is not an experience that you will treasure. Freedom of speech they say is a fundamental right but what happens when this freedom is dispossessed. It rankles inside of you like the bitter after-smoke of hickory gone sour. You try everything at this stage even including let go of a belch or two. But you fail to expectorate the words that are dying to show themselves.

It scarcely matters that we have things to do in life and places to be. It does not even count whether we are an important person or not. The words that define us are fading ever so slowly. They are losing their own identity caught up in the maelstrom inside of us. When the words were molded and came into existence they had a certain aspiration about themselves. They were sentient beings ready to inflict their worst or best on life. They were the vibrations of the universe channeled into singular molecules of speech that course through every aspect of each other’s lives. These molecules had the power to transform life itself in a manner that we cannot fathom most of the time. But all of a sudden they are powerless to wreak the change that they are destined for and like infants clamors for freedom in ways that are unknown to them. Like a slow burning fuse their helplessness burns long and inexorably until they run out of the cordite. The last dying spark flutters and suddenly dies out sucking the optimism out of the word.

It is infectious for it spreads like a disease from word to word until their collective will is silenced. They have lost their courage and their innate ability to discard the dispirited burden that has insidiously crept inside them. The words have lost their youthful zest to change themselves and the rest of the world around them.

They yield to their destiny instead of fashioning it and refuse to come out. They were done and that meant the end for me as well. The world remains as it was until the end of time.