(This story is dedicated to Adiel who must get tired of me making her cry.)

The words flooded back into her mouth, wet and wonderful. For so long she had walked around dry and empty of all worthwhile words. She had tried not to say anything in that time because, no matter how hard one tries, when the words are gone there is simply nothing to say. Your mouth moves and you try to form thoughts, but all that walks out of your mouth is gibberish.

She often wondered where her words went when they weren’t in her mouth. Maybe they skipped off to vacation in the sun. She imagined a heavy dictionary sun-bathing on a tropical beach, the waves crashing in the distance. Her words would get warm and a little burnt in that hot, tropical sun. Usually her words were thoughtful and often tried hard to be wise, but who knows what goes on in the mind of a large dictionary when it’s let out into the sun next to a drink with one of those little umbrellas. Maybe her words had been in the tropics, but when they came back they didn’t look tanned.

Perhaps they went on a skiing trip to some snowy mountain top somewhere. She imagined the dictionary flying down a mountainside, the wind ruffling its pages, a fuzzy scarf flapping in the wind. She imagined the rush and the wind would be exhilarating to her words. They so often wanted to fly. Maybe if they hit a rock on those skis this would be their chance. But when her words came back they didn’t look windswept or chapped so it must not have been skiing.

Maybe they didn’t go anywhere. Maybe they were where they always were, but she was the one who was lost. She was in the file room of her words and she just couldn’t find the right file cabinet. The room was surprisingly well lit considering how the rest of her consciousness was lit with candles. The file cabinet was right in the middle of the room. There was even a spotlight on it, but perhaps she had just kept looking over it. She looked through her memories, her thoughts, her beliefs about kittens and all her fond memories of cheese sauce, but never could seem to find any words.

Whichever, whatever, wherever her words had been when she couldn’t find them they were back now. She settled down to enjoy them, savoring their flavor and letting them roll around her mouth before sending them out through her lips. Perspicuity. Mazel tov. Balcony. Partial. Tertiary. Bathroom. Transcendent. Pub….