Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Seven

Love’s guidedog was a loyal and faithfully creature, please have no doubt about it, but even she had her doubts the suitability of the situation.

Aggressive return to work policies had led to the guidedog leading Love back into the office far too soon after the accident. An accident that had led to the need for the dog’s current employment in the first place.

“Maybe start with an easy one,” the dog said to Love as they walk in the door, but Love may as well been deaf too for all the notice she took of the dog’s advice.

“We got us some matchmaking to do ya mangy hound, just point me at ‘em,” was Love’s command.

The dog had no idea what she was doing so simply started sniffing people’s groins, which frankly was not far removed from the system humans had been using themselves since time began.

Matches were made, hearts were joined.

That Love was blind and following pure animal instinct was not a problem, it was that those under Love’s spell through there was something greater at work. That their match was true and unique.

It was the colour blind leading the blind leading the foolish.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Six

There’s no anagram of anagram.

There’s no other word for thesaurus.

It takes three syllables to make one syllable.

It doesn’t seem right that there is both a plural for single and also a single plural.

Like a well behaved child, silent letters should been seen and not heard.

Circle should be spelt O.

I suspect people literally misuse the word literally more than every other word in the English language.

Palindrome is a missed opportunity and alphabet should contain 26 letters.

Is there a word that describes words that describe words?

It is a pair of spectacles when it should be a pair of monocles, or even a duocle.

It really should be spelt hyphen-ated but unhyphenated knows where it’s at.

Contraction should put its money where its apostrophe isn’t and become cont’ion.

Being stoic makes me cry.

Monepic. Yes!

Logic has an O so you can poke holes in it.

Which came first, etymology or the meaning of etymology?

You can’t prefix something that ain’t broke yet.

I bet there’s a word in German for when people say “I bet there’s a word in German for that”

Nothing lasts forever, so let’s do nothing together.

Onomatopoeia sounds perfect.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Five

Once the cops sold the rights to your rights, “Sir your right to remain silent is brought to you by the McWhopper, so delicious you’ll be lost for words but light on the calories, so anything you can and do order will not be held against your waistline”, it was all over, there was no escaping advertising.

Doctors presented new parents with their baby brought to them by contraceptives, which as any new parents so learns is redundant, a child is the result of lack of contraception but acts as an opportunity barrier for ever needing contraception. Like a gun that shoots backwards, they are a self-fixing problem.

There was not a waking moment you could avoid it, or even a resting one.

Dream product placement was the dream product placement,  let your phone send sponsored signals to your brain as you sleep and get free texts.

Not even death could save you, if you could get 200 people to your funeral the coffin would be free, as long as you didn’t mind it being covered in ads for gym memberships – You can’t out run death, but you can get a head start.

All because we started skipping the ads.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Four

He looked at his reflection and saw perfection.

He looked again and thought maybe that wasn’t enough.

He realised the eye glasses over when faced with uniform perfection.

He saw flawlessness was a flaw, that perfection was not perfect.

He understood that it’s a bump in the road that reminds you how smooth your ride has been.

He set about perfecting perfection.

He pulled puppies ears till they learnt to bite.

He taught good children to wield a stick rather than offer a kind word.

He scratched new cars, toed wet cement and walked on the grass.

He left his fractured perfection in his wake.

He fell in love with a smart, kind woman with a beautiful soul.

He treated her so well she fell in love with him.

He told her his life’s mission and her face became a mask of horror.

He listened to her cry, ‘you are a monster, I’d could never love you.’

He was ruined for good, you could now see his black heart in his eyes.

He had been broken perfectly making him perfectly broken, something that would never bring him joy, not anymore.

She was happy to help him complete his life’s work.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Three

He saw the future when he slept but when he woke the detail of his dreams turned to steam and slipped through his grasping fingers.

He would search out the subjects of his prophetic visions to try and warn them of what he knew but never had success.

“I had the strangest dream and I think it was about you,” he would begin. “It was raining or we were in the pool, I’m not sure, does your name start with T? There was a very low doorway.”

No one cares about other people’s dreams, real or imaginary, so he was unable to communicate his prognostications. To many he was just another crazy person.

But that is when They came calling.

They recruited him. They are responsible for every wrong, They killed Kennedy, They faked the Moon landing, They are probably hitting on your girlfriend right now.

You ask anyone who did it, “They did!” will be the reply. They took the bad news from his dreams and made it happen. 

Which is why when you open the paper it seems like the nightmares of a madman.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty Two

I take everything literally and I take everything, literally.

“I might need you to repeat that.”

I am a literal kleptomaniac and I’m a kleptomaniac, literally.

“You’ve not really made yourself any clearer.”

I take everything literally, which figuratively speaking would make me a literal kleptomaniac…

“See I think you have already contradicted yourself.”

…and also I literally take everything.

“Well I agree with you there, give that pen back please. Now semantically speaking…”

No, shoosh now. I’m not into semantics at all, I’m anti semantic.

“I don’t think you should say that too loud,”

But I would say I’m not anti some antics, I love me some antics to break up the quiet between words. I think I come off as odd to people.

“You took the words right out of my mouth”

See I told you I was a literal kleptomaniac. I literally took your words; I take all the words literally, I collect them. Thank you, this has been a great help.

It took time but the Wordsmith always managed to help people find the meaning of their lives, and librarians were always a little bit crazy.

Instalment One Hundred and Sixty One

A 200 Word Story Sponsored Content Feature

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