Story: Wordspace, IV

(Part I , III , V)

The Wordspace theoretically existed infinitely and flatly in all directions. The ever brilliant and witty Sky shimmered above thinking flighty and witty thoughts as Cloud and Air spread out beneath her according to their whims and mighty Ground spread out over the underlying landscape of petty punctuation and unused nonsense syllables that formed the substructure of the world. At the limits of the explored world there had been placed a frontier of great antiquity, which formally divided the known from the unknown. And now there was a hole in that frontier: An entirely inexplicable patch of nothingness with foundation showing through beneath. Bizarre!

Mystery perambulated about the hole and pondered the great - aha! - mystery of what lay beyond the frontier. Once the mighty explorer Indignation had set off, somewhat grumpily of course, to find the edge of the world and had been gone for five years. It had been a much more peaceful time without him and people were stunned to see long forgotten word stumble back into the known world so many years later looking gaunt and lettered to the point of crisis. Many weeks of recuperation had passed before his story could be heard, such as it was. He had stumbled for ages beyond this now breached symbolic frontier, and had found nothing more than an endless expanse of nonsense and drivel. The current idea was that there was no edge to the world.

THWUMP!

"Great Shades!" said Wimsy, as the syllabic dust settled. Something had fallen from the sky, from a great height, and now they could see what it was. Or who. The visitor straightened up and twisted around on his unfamiliar letters before looking at the Council of Lesser Abstracts, who looked back at him in total incomprehension. His landing had punched another hole of nothingness into the foundation. "Hola!" said the arrival and Mystery was astonished. A word that no-one knew, an extra-lexical visitor, speaking a language unknown to the Wordspace. This was an alien life form, from some other alphabet far far away. Unprecedented as far as most words were concerned, but not to him. He held up a few digits and saluted the visitor, "Welcome. We welcome you in peace."

"No comprendo... Hay una problema... Me llamo Sorpresa..." The foreign word gestured toward himself and repeated "Sorpresa" a few times.

As the others looked on in a befuddled state, Mystery stepped toward Sorpresa, motioned to himself and told him: "My name is Mystery. Mystery."

"Misterio?"

"Close enough." Mystery realised things weren't as hard as he thought and looked up at the sky. "Yes, Mystery." Relations could be established now but despite the monumental events of the last few moments he couldn't help from raising his head and looking up into the muddied letters of the now confused Sky. "Where did you come from, though... And what's up there, beyond the Sky?" He had never been up high enough to talk to Sky, but now he realised it was long past time. He returned to the issue at hand. "Come along with me, Sorpresa, we have to try to make some sense of you!"

There shall be more...