In the Silent Hours
© Bill West
It was in the dark of night, when others slept, that he did it. They looked so pure, so innocent, he thought; black and crisp against the smooth white.
He would hunt them, singly or in groups. He didn't much care where he found them. They were his to take. He would put them to his own use, twist and deform them till they did his bidding.
But later, in the silent hours, voices came. Ghost marionettes, grey mouthed, arms outstretched, tongues licking up his words; words to speak, words to make them live. They didn't share his passion, the actions of verbs on nouns. They wanted words as flesh, words to shape them.
He tried to resist, thinking of shorter and shorter words, like nubbin or pin. The struggle was intense. Characters raged in a vacuum, motiveless and faceless, fading mouth, shredding like clouds in rain. He starved them and he tamed them, choked them with fragments, and checked them with punctuation, with commas and the full-stop.