Inside-Out

Necessity was absent for the birth of the dictionary. The right words never seemed to come when faced with an actual confrontation. The ideas stumbled over themselves in her brain until they beat a retreat to the land of the lost, where no phrase could ever find the way to express them. It was as if they were meant to be turned out raw, like meat waiting to be tenderized and cut apart before being cooked in searing hot oil or thrown onto a steaming grill. They were still clinging to that last bit of life; where they owned a share but never had to pay a visit to the tenants. They bled out like water, but refused to congeal even enough to be seen under a microscope. As they were covered by the dust, she slowly forgot, but could always see the embossed titles on the hard covers of thoughts never to be destroyed, and only reopened years later, when the reader could no longer be sure of the meanings.