Sleepy Words

A bunch of lazy, sleepy words. That’s what I got. Words that wouldn’t move for anything or anyone. Burned out, apparently, you see. Shattered. I went around to the word-place to ask them for assistance and they were all just lying around, dead to the world. A lot of lazy, useless words. Leave us alone! We’re bloody exhausted, they moaned. I walked around for a bit, kicking a few of them. Get up, will ya! I yelled. But it was no use. They weren’t about to budge. Some of them were snoring very loudly, others were half-asleep and drooling and sniffing. I noticed the feeble concentration of one particularly zonked nome trying to see what was happening on the busy television set in the corner of the room, but mostly the set buzzed away unwatched. I continued to walk around. I hoped to find just one or two words of a semi-conscious nature. I was sure if I found just one or two I could spend a little time nurturing and reviving them and hopefully I could bring them to a ready state. But there didn’t seem to be one word available to me. A crowd of slackers! Yonder is the main culprit. Yonder is perhaps the sleepiest word of them all. A lazy so and so. I’ve had countless arguments with that layabout. He is such a bad influence on the others. And the most distressing thing is that I have never needed his help before in any grammatical sequence. He is not a word I would normally consider employing. But I feel it is he who emboldens this idleness. The others are impressed by his lack of fretfulness. He’s an old hat compared to many of them. The experienced old sage. They look up to Yonder. Think he’s a pretty cool word and everything Yonder does, they should do because of how cool Yonder is. They call him The Word. That’s what they call him. But really Yonder’s had his day in the sun. Sure, he’s still available for use if a sentence requires his presence, but he’s no longer a word of frequent use. They don’t often require his presence at all. So he’s depressed about it naturally and, as a result, he usually sits around on his arse all day long promoting the joys of vegetation and we duly lose so many words to lethargy. Yonder is looking pretty rundown at the moment. That doesn’t surprise me. Yonder always looks rundown. Even more rundown than some of his younger colleagues who all have greater reason for their looks of weariness considering they are more commonly implemented words. Ey, amigo! Yonder said, addressing me. I issued a Pardon me? I looked into his eyes. They were wretched and sneaky. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a word? If you haven’t yet done so, be prepared for a wild spume of cajolery. You be lookin’ for words, amigo, yeh? he continued. Yes, I’m looking for words. What’s it to you, Yonder? I responded, mordantly. He said something else to me in a blackguard style, but I ignored the lazy bum and continued to peruse the room for near-awake words, not getting anywhere. It was shocking to me. I knew there had been a significant decline in effort within the world of meaningful terms and appellations recently, but I had not imagined it to be as serious as this. Everywhere I looked, words of little drive or burden. There wasn’t a single word in the vicinity that was likely to operate within a system of syntax. There were slumberous nouns, sluggish pronouns, bored verbs, droopy adjectives; it was a sight for sore eyes. Quite a lot of words, similar not only in their attitudes but also rather strangely in appearance, yawned at me as I walked past them. Drawl, Shawl, Crawl, and Trawl were just a few. Hello guys, I said. Yawn! they answered. Fine, then. Yawn himself was actually there with them. Spread out yawning on the floor in a sprawl. What a pathetic company it was. Even normally lively words like Skedaddle had dulled down to Skedawdle. Drawl came up to me and drawled, Can’t you get it through your thick skull? We’re not playing by your rules anymore. You’re not wanted here. I offered him all I had in my wallet at that moment if he would agree to take part in a sentence I was planning to create later that evening. I really wasn’t thinking straight at this point. I was looking for any word at all. Anything would have suited me. I didn’t have a position vacant for Drawl. The sentence I was planning didn’t call for such a word. But I would have settled for anything. I would have settled for Drawl. Get out of here, you sleazy mongrel, and take your money with you! We don’t need your kind here. We’re tired of you. We’re tired of it all. Yawn! I decided to get my hide out of there. There wasn’t much point in me sticking around. They weren’t going to help me out. I started to leave. Ey, amigo, you be leaving? So long, amigo! I heard Yonder calling after me. Good riddance! voiced Drawl. Yawn, yawned Yawn. As I was leaving, I noticed some punctuation passing by. They were being obscenely loud and boisterous. Ever since the words first displayed their disillusionment and started sleeping and lounging all day long, punctuation marks had become a reckless kind. They spent their time going to parties and raising hell. They thought they were movie stars. They caused such a racket. And when they did bother to show up for sentence duty, they caused further hullabaloo. Commas showed up drunk and picked fights with random letters. Apostrophes could be spotted indulging in lewd behaviour right in the middle of respectable phrases. And question marks ignored timetables, showed up when they wanted to, whenever they ?wanted to, with little respect for the laws of language. I wasn’t going to begin looking for punctuation marks. I hadn’t even got any words yet. What was the point in that? It pains me that this is what we’ve come to. That these blasted words have just decided to drop out of everything and leave us to our own devices. I’m going to get out of this game altogether because there’s not much point in respecting words if they’re not going to respect you back. Oh, I’ve said it, haven’t I? I may have just gone too far. I’m expecting a backlash any minute now from these particular words for that last comment. Yes, I’ve said it. These words will be asleep any second now. Conked out. Yes, they’re turning from mildly active words to sleepy words. They’re getting tired suddenly. Jesus, very suddenly. It’s
                                                           almost like the
words have been
                            have been
given a shot of                               some
                                                                                                    kind because now
they’re                                  passing along

at a
                                                                                             slow and
sleepy pace. Holy
                                         mackerel. They’re fading fast but very                               slowly.
             Such                         weary                                              weary
words. To              Hell
with it. 

I’ll                                                          survive
                        without them.                                   I’m a

survivor.                            If                                you

want                         these

                       words,                                            you
can have them.

Bec  ause                                           I su re       w    on’t be
nee   din g the    m
  
                                                                       f   o    r                                  
m     u                      c     h

          l                     o                      n                          g                                 e                         r.