The Word Shop (standard:other, 977 words)
Author: Sare	Added: Nov 16 2001	Views/Reads: 3172/2108	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
There must be a shop somewhere that has words for sale... What would it be like?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

friendly.  Or from the adult-movie place.  The people on the box covers 
look content.  Or from the grocery store, they had some happiness lying 
beside the oranges last week. 

By this time I was frustrated.  I asked him what he would buy? 

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?  Thinking of a store that could sell the
emotion you want.  I’d try to find serenity.  An emotional state of 
mind.” 

From where, I asked. 

“I suppose I’d look in ship yards first.” 

I would look beneath a lilac bush, I told him.  Or under an evergreen
covered in snow. 

“But where is the cashier,” he asked, “and what emotion would you
exchange?  For you have to pay with one you don’t want.” 

That one was easy.  I would give away my grief, I told him.  Grief for
those I’ve lost and the part of me that was lost.  It’s high time I get 
rid of it.  I can remember and be a little sad forever, but there has 
to be an end to grieving and mourning. 

In the Word Shop, I told him, money could not buy happiness.  A bit of
money would buy you the word, “happiness”.  A trade of grief and 
sadness would buy the idea, the concept.  To purchase this emotion, 
though, would require a complete willingness to experience it.  You 
would have to give away your sadness and your grief and open yourself 
up totally to the happiness. 

“Now you’re getting the idea,” he said. 

Maybe.  But I have therapy for that kind of thing.  I’m far more
interested in the Word Shop. 

***** 

Thank you, Kelly, for being you, and all the Kelly things you do.  I
love you. SM. Nov 15, 2001.


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