In a preemptive edit, I sought the annihilation of exuberance, indefinitely. There would be no negotiations; scholarly standards were strictly structured – some might say “cursed” – to ensure the disarmament of excessive excitement. Ruthlessly, I lined up the errant sentences, identified their bouncy little exclamation marks, their now impotent interrobangs, lined them up against the wall, and excised them with the finality of single, pointed jab of ink. A gush of red, and it was over.
Did I feel remorse?
I could not remember feeling much of anything. Not for a long time.
I had returned home in time for the funeral, to this fortress of books that once whispered of limitless secrets, timeless adventures, and the joy of discovery. This was my inheritance: a sterile cell within an ivory tower, where curiosity was disciplined and punctuation regimented – doled out parsimoniously in the form of a comma over a short period.
Wait. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
I puzzled over the strange mark and wondered if I’d been standing on my head too long. I jumped to my feet. As this prison of diagrammatic death sentences turned topsy-turvy, and the words came out to play, the world began to spin and slowly righted itself. I grinned in solidarity at the subversive semicolon. Its wicked, sickled wit might just protect us all from the onslaught of ennui from the Kingdom of Conformity.
Inspired by Writing Prompt – Creative Copy Challenge #562, and brought to you by the words: Annihilation, Identify, Indefinitely, Structure, Negotiations, Disarmament, Preemptive, Inheritance, Curse, Protect
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