“Erm” or the last word of a fabricator.

I woke up late with a piercing pain in everything and an acute sense of unspeakable failure and loss. I attempted to put the dispersed thoughts and quivering snatches of conversations into semblance but they were crumbling into word dust, into the myriads of kaleidoscopic possibilities. I remembered that in the beginning there was a word of some sort but then it all got very messy and led to a massive comedown. Trying to ignore the knot in my throat, I raked through the nearest space, hoping I had saved a few words for a rainy day. I checked my Personal Thread but it turned out to be shamefully broken, dangling wistfully in the space. Switching to My Accounts made me numb with fear. My vocabulary reserves were almost depleted. I looked around and felt the creeping aphasia.

I found my room changed again, as if subject to subtle but pertinacious corrections introduced in short periods of inattention. In fact, I was convinced that I saw spaces dispersing already in the corners of my eyes, losing their solidity and slipping into pulsating disorder, pretending to form familiar shapes only when I looked at them carefully. Disorganised and absent-minded, I was not a worthy opponent, and the new order of things had been introduced slowly but mercilessly. The space was sliding into a state of indescribable chaos. Almost all surfaces were covered with emptied words without any sense: loosely-linked remarks without deeper meaning, cheap flattery, well worn family jokes, distracted answers exchanged on the run, a few bourgeois truisms which blended in so well I stopped noticing them, courtesies of second quality, some borrowed phrases taken out of context (women's at first glance), remnants of duplicitous compliments, mouldy confessions of unknown origin, unnecessary digressions which did not match any themes, woolly disquisitions of poor consistence, badly translated lyrics, dirty talk crammed bashfully under the cupboards, and layers of undefinable gibberish.

The awareness of my situation slowly crystallised a vision of a meeting which could temporarily solve my problems but also generate a massive shit I could potentially step into. While the first one was only possible, the latter – almost certain.

I went outside hoping to find some second-hand Words. Powerful streams of silent passersby immediately gobbled me up but nobody seemed to be throwing words in vain. I knew their kind - keeping their teeth clenched for so long that the words in their mouths fermented wildly and then degenerated, resulting in awful grimaces and facial contortions.

I stared enviously at Blabors speeding along the streets. I still remember when everybody believed they would be different, but then they started making little fortunes on the turnover of foreign vocabulary. A guy who worked for them told me that they were bouncing cheques for Big Words and playing Speech Effects all day long. Obviously, no word could escape the impenetrable walls of the soundproof vehicles.

I started following a whispering couple; reckless with Words, lovers are always the easiest victims. For a moment I thought I had got lucky - they were so preoccupied with each other that they did not notice a few lost words falling lightly on the dirty pavement. I grabbed them ravenously, but I quickly realised that it was the cheesiest verbal pulp. I could no longer delay my visit.

The old Lanark Leisure Centre was not safe at any time; it was easy to disappear without a trace in the soft mouths of corridors, in the tangle of hospital-like passageways leading to who knows where, in the fluorescent gleaming pits of Saloons providing services of tempting but illegal nature. My footsteps, initially muffled by lino floors, eventually reverberated with the echo of sad murmurs and moans. Tired Lingvicas of different sexes, ages and stages of wear and tear were sleeping or stretching languidly on old pieces of gym equipment in a dark parody of exercise. When I passed, some of them pouted their lips provocatively, pretending to pronounce first letters of Words as a decoy. One of them picked a desperate client, loosened her tongue and started giving him a Whisper right there. I shuddered with disgust, such a mess! Abominable rumbles were exuding the rooms and flowing down the corridors, vilifying comments formed undefinable lumps of mutter, the remnants of some vile texts left scattered everywhere... I suddenly felt light-headed and leaned heavily against the wall. A little Lingvica nosed out an opportunity and approached me with a half-open mouth trying to seduce me with deep-throat gurgles and growls. I felt the characteristic perineal warmth but I moved aside to a safe distance. She was very young and lingarrulous but, surely, already infected. The last thing I needed today was to get larynxis or common lisp.

An old toothpaste advert with gigantic female lips had faded even more since my previous visit. I was there again with the incapacitating thought that last time was supposed to be the last. Two troglodytes were enjoying a stupefying wordplay at the entrance. One of them barred my way when I tried to follow a familiar narrow corridor leading upstairs. With a painful sigh I threw him a few good spare Words which he caught nimbly, then stepped aside with a theatrical bow.

She did not expect me and only her greed masked her innate lack of hospitality. It kept surprising me how little she was for such a wily Word Con. I remembered her face before the labiodental seizure that had bared her tobacco-tarnished teeth in a sardonic smile. She had got away with her mischief for a surprisingly long time before getting infected, considering she had a Word with almost every writer and artist in the city. Too short and round-faced to be a femme fatale, she used to seduce them with approachable, quiet mediocrity. Intellectuals, self-centered by nature, were particularly prone to flattery and could not contain their eloquence. Their lack of vigilance usually cost them all the Words, which she scrupulously collected and attributed to herself. Quick and flea-like, she used to leave them robbed and speechless, unable to explain what had happened. Nobody knew where she was sourcing the Words from after her face got disfigured. I heard that she grew more and more remote from practical affairs and focused on Collecting, but I was reluctant to believe that she would abandon her larcenous inclinations.

She raised her eyebrows and covered her closed fist with the embrace of her other hand which meant: You got a Strong Word last time. Are you bringing a Narrative?

We had that conversation many times before. I pointed at my outstretched fingers trying to say: I have a few projects in mind but I need the Leaven.

She shook her head in disbelief and replied angrily with a complicated digital formation I barely understood: The Words are expensive these days, and you like wasting.

I raised my hands to explain but she stopped me with a warning gesture: If you fuck it up again, Controllers might find out about the little tales of yours and you will rot in prison inventing Euphemisms and Puns.

I cringed slightly at this response taken straight from old gangster films, but remembered the last time I failed to deliver my fictitious obligations: all the non-abstract nouns mysteriously disappeared and I pointed at objects in confusion for a few months trying to remember their names.

After a few tricky maneuvers, lost concessions and numerous traps set up by her during negotiations, she finally stood on her tiptoes and brought her anomalous face closer to mine. I contained my revulsion and let her whisper a Word into my ear…

It exploded in my head making me tellirious... and descrambled. The space became clarescal and emphysemic, filled with fictious fibrillations. Ferovile and suddenly gregalous, I felt again avial hubbustions reaching my cavernal sackrorum and rising even higher. I egrased my newly flamoured insetions, salibbering them cravenously in the act of boundless self-acceration. I wanted them in my estriles, inpusted underneth my ottoles, punded over my rubbelions. My trest was friling impediously, preding the pulvid evisterations…