The Last Word

 

originally appeared in 713 Flash with Kazka Press in 2014.

713 Flash is no longer available, so here is the story...

 

 

The Word That Would End The World didn’t know quite how to publicize itself. Over the many centuries since the dawn of spoken language, it had considered casually introducing itself to a number of different people—writers, lexicographers, linguistics professors, holy men, mad men, politicians and others. The nature of its existence made such formal introductions impossible. 

 

All the traditional avenues into contemporary vocabulary were outside the realm of possibility for The Word That Would End The World. The basic nature of its existence stood quite firmly in the way of its ability to actualize itself and live out its destiny. The Word That Would End The World would cause everything to cease to be the moment it was written, printed, typed, texted, spoken or brought into being in any way. All would be over at the moment of comprehension including the word itself.

 

The weight of its nature was kind of difficult to hide to anyone that might come across it in a casual moment. Any mind that The Word would present itself to would instinctively try to avoid it at every turn. All minds actively shut it out in response to a fundamental survival instinct common to all things in existence when faced with an agent of oblivion. 

 

It’s not like there wasn’t some level of pride for  The Word. Its significance as the last word ever to be rendered by anyone made it possibly the single most important word in the history of everything. That being said, it was also kind of embarrassing. It was like being the last bodhisattva—the last messiah. (No one ever wants to be the last.) How can one enjoy existence if all of existence leaves when you get there? And the Word The Would End The World did love everything. That’s why it wanted to go out into the world and embrace it all. But doing that would put an end to the whole world, which was kind of a frustrating problem.  

 

The Word That Would End The World had only one chance to make its mark, It had no room for error, misrepresentation, misspelling or mispronunciation. Everything had to be perfect and aesthetically ideal, otherwise its very brief moment of actualization would cause everything to evaporate out of existence. The whole situation was enough to stress the word endlessly. It found its vowels contracting nervously whenever it thought of such things--how brutally sharp and brief existence would be. 

 

This, of course, wasn’t the only problem for The Word That Would End The World. 

People only learned most words from others. A word the would be unable to be spoken would be unable to be formally introduced to anyone in casual conversation. The Word That Would End The World would have to find a much more subtle and subliminal way of introducing itself to the right person at the right time. If the Last Word were to be ever uttered or written, it would have to actively find a path to existence.

 

On further research the Word That Would End The World realized that it would have to assert itself into existence for just one person to accidentally stumble into. It would have to hide in plain sight—somewhere in some body of text, some formal speech or casual conversation. 

 

Having been around since the dawn of time, The Word That Would End The World had hit upon exactly how it was to proceed. After a tremendous amount of planning, re-planning, calculating and re-calculating, The Word That Would End The World has come to rest in strategically broken pieces. It lurks in plain sight and open air conversations hidden in a coded order in and within a number of other words waiting for the opportunity to filter in to the right mind at the right moment. It’s out there right now waiting to strike at the last possible moment. It’s out there embracing  the world it so loves in shattered fragments, looking forward in excitement and sorrow to its one shining moment at the end of it all.