THE TURQUOISE PEN

THE POWER OF WORDS, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE NOT THERE

Noël R. King

Richard Forblythe was a writer, and he was very happy about that. He was a very good writer, in fact, and he was especially happy about that. He knew that he was exceedingly fortunate to both love what he did and be good at it.

So he wrote away. He wrote reams and reams of words. They fell seamlessly from his brain onto his special writing tablet or onto his computer keyboard when he felt more like typing. Oh, they felt soooooooooo good!

Until one day he thought he noticed something. At first he thought it was his imagination, which he actually liked because he honored his imagination and really tried to pamper it. But then it got to the point where he could no longer fool himself.

The problem was, he would write and write and write, just as usual—with one difference. After an entire afternoon of just writing away—feverishly even, he thought—he would go back to read his day’s labors at the end of his writing session, as he always did, but would find only a few simple paragraphs strung together.

"Okay, that’s nice," he would think as he read them. "They read nicely. That’s a great beginning. Now where’s all the other stuff I wrote?"

Yes, my friends. That was the problem. Where did all the words go?

Richard could not figure it out. He even had his wife watch him one day to verify that he wasn’t just imagining how the words came pouring out of him only to vanish upon his perusal at the end of the writing session.

His wife agreed that, yes, that was what seemed to be happening. She did not seem to think it was the catastrophic event that he did, however.

All she said was, "Well, you know, dear. Words are not what they used to be."

"What! What do you mean by that?" Richard practically shouted, he was so agitated.

"See?" She only responded calmly. "That’s what I mean."

Oh, it drove him almost mad. But still he kept writing. How can a writer not write? Or, at least in Richard’s case, think he was writing.

One Month Later

One morning, almost exactly one month later, comprehension dawned to ease Richard’s wrinkled brow and slow his racing heart. His breathing calmed, and desperation transformed into a small, quirky smile at the corners of his mouth as he finally understood something:

What he had been expressing was beyond words. Although he hadn’t recognized this until just that moment, the words themselves had. They had been withdrawing of their own accord, gathering beyond time and space.

As of this count, Richard figures he has probably "written" about 80 books and some 200 articles, only a few pages of which he can show you, if you are intrepid enough to ask.

He’s doing a pretty good job of gradually switching over to pride and a new sense of self-worth at adding constantly to the pool of meaning beyond words, but he is still somewhat sensitive to those whose words do still stick to paper. So, as of this printing, he has been unwilling to read this biographic sketch of himself.

His wife thinks that’s silly—"It’s just words, honey," is what she tells him. "The real you is beyond words, remember?"

—As circumstances warrant, through her Turquoise Pen column Noël R. King, Reston, Virginia, reports on strange and wonderful things, including words that are not there.