February 26, 2004

Ahh...if I could, in a word, encapsulate my gist—the very nub of my drift, you see—it would be, I think, a word so meaningful, so spectacular in its universal profundity, that all those who read it, or even glanced in its direction would, in that very moment, experience such a keen understanding of my state of mind that I would become instantaneously famous.

Wealth would follow, for never in the entire history of human evolution would there have been a person so well-known as myself, following the publication of that singular, most effable word.

And acclaim! The Nobel Committee would invent a category for most excellent words, and I would be the first recipient of that august award. The keys to a dozen European capitals would line my walls, and the length of the streets that newly-bore my name would total three thousand American miles.

All because of that single, perfect, most expressive, encapsulatory word.

Wars would stop as combatants understood me, and we would use the excess funds to build domes under the sea and spinning tops in high orbit. On Mars they would plant a platinum plaque bearing my likeness, captioned with my uniquely exquisite syllabic genius. Probes to Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star would bear my numbered surname and my word, and the first interstellar colonial capitals would be my eponymous legacy to the galaxy.

Resultant from, and due entirely to, that spectacular, flawless, utterly inimitable, revelatory word.

After I passed from life granite monoliths and mountainous temples would tumble skyward, and shrines to the word would dot the farthest and most forlorn places of Earth's empire. The scholars of all the human worlds would ponder the word, finding it so ubiquitous. As Sol faded, and memories of old Earth receded into the cosmic depths of heat-death history, the temples and shrines would sink into the dust of a thousand planets.

And, one day, a compound-eyed archaeologist of strange metabolism will wield a soft and gentle brush made of light against a worn plaque of thin and pitted metal, and uncover my ancient face and my perfect word. It will hold the metal plaque up against the cold black sky of long-abandoned Mars, framed by the tumbled stumps of fallen towers.

And it will chitter to itself, and say, "This will make a tasty snack."