The Word Shop (standard:other, 977 words)
Author: Sare	Added: Nov 16 2001	Views/Reads: 3169/2108	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
There must be a shop somewhere that has words for sale... What would it be like?

“Imagine... imagine that you, Sarah, could purchase any one emotion. 
Where would you be able to buy it?  Which one would you choose?”  A 
very dear friend of mine, who likes to challenge me, asked me this the 
other day. 

I said I would buy peace, inner peace of course, inner quiet like a calm
hush.  I’ve tried to find it in church and God but it isn’t available 
for me there. 

So I will buy it from words.  There must be a shop somewhere that has
words for sale... and you can purchase any ones you want... and I bet 
they have peace lying around, in the back corner somewhere, and they’ll 
see I need it and give it to me at a discount. 

I’d be their favourite customer, you see.  The Word Shop... oh, yes,
what a magnificent place it would be, words of all sizes and shapes, 
colours, textures, and sounds.  Oh, it must be the most beautiful place 
in the universe... the Word Shop. 

In there you could spend all day every day with all those words... all
the delightful words... can you imagine it, how wonderful and beautiful 
and spectacular it would be?  What would the words look like?Would 
“splendor” be splendid?  Would “euphoria” be an image of extreme bliss? 
 What would “infinity” look like?  “Infinity” would probably be both 
infinitely small and unimaginably, infinitely huge.  The numbers would 
have a room of their own that began with a labeled door and stretched 
on forever.  The colour words would stand out in stunning contrast.  
“Red” would be the epitome of redness.  “Blue” would be the veritable 
definition of blueness.  “Purple” would be a lesson in what it is to BE 
purple.  Imagine the more beautiful words.  What would “flare” look 
like?  How about “dazzle”?  “Magnificent”, “serious”, “sudden”.  What 
would the word “love” look like?  How could you ever purchase it? 

He asked, “How many words would make the emotion?  And peace is a cheat
because peace is a state of mind and not an emotion.” 

I answered, no, I want peace the emotion and not the state of mind... I
can’t hope for peace as a state of mind until I’m reborn as a Buddhist 
monk seeking enlightenment and nirvana.  I want peace the emotion 
that’s like calm you really feel and don’t just show.  It fills you up 
inside and silences the cacophony of thought and worry and anger and 
fear and sadness. 

He said, “Sorry, you can’t have peace as an emotion.  Show me proof,
write how you can do that.  I don’t believe it until you prove it to 
me.  Go to where all those words are and pick the ones you want to use 
for your world.” 

Peace is green and made up of words for love in every language ever
invented, I told him.  It has flowers and is soft like a rose’s petals. 
 It’s built on trust and belief and faith and love, it shines like a 
beacon from so far away.  But it’s very hard to find. 

But peace just didn’t work for him.  “It’s not an emotion.  It may cause
the emotion, but it isn’t the emotion.”  So I tried, “peaceful”... that 
didn’t work, either.  He said, “Nope, doesn’t work, and you cannot kid 
me.  You’re miles off.” 

Finally I decided on one.  I would buy happiness, I told him.  I would
buy far too much and give almost all of it away.  And I would buy it 
from the Word Shop, I said, they have everything in there. 

He argued that the Word Shop doesn’t exist except in my head. 

So I said that I would borrow it from the excess that surrounds lovers,
and mothers with babies, and friends.  Like a palpable cloud around 
them.  I would just grab a little here and there. 

Or perhaps I will buy it from the fairies and pixies that live in the
woods, although their prices aren’t that great. 

“No,” he said, “Can’t do that.  It has to be paid for.  Must be from a
shop.  Which one?” 

Maybe from the sex-toy store, I suggested.  The blow-up dolls look


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