The Last Word
by Karen Jones
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None
Description: Imagining a world without creative writing.
Swearwords: None
Description: Imagining a world without creative writing.
The poets were the first to die. Shunned, scorned, their souls poisoned by the angst they couldn’t vent. Unused rhythms burst their over-flowing hearts and strangled their creativity. They choked on their rhymes.
The philistines smiled.
The playwrights didn’t mourn the poets – those twisters of words – but untold conversations soon spun their brains into frenzy. They talked, shouted, argued and made up with their own egos. They wandered, muttering, taking their final bows. Their sense of drama decreed that suicide would be their most fitting finale.
The philistines laughed.
The novelists sneered. Playwrights were melodramatic fools. But then they wondered, in this new world, who would print their novels? Who would read them? Had they ever been good? Was the purge justified by their inadequacy as artists? Paranoia bred despair, despair denied them sustenance, malnutrition brought their demise.
The philistines rejoiced.
The journalists recorded the events with glee. For so long the bastard children of the true artists, now they were the only surviving wordsmiths. Yet they were still looked upon with disgust – even as they revelled in the success of their masters. They took solace in alcohol. Their words became as drunk as their minds and soon both dried up.
The world’s readers, with no means of escape from their own stories, became an unproductive, uncaring, unfeeling mass.
The philistines’ success went unheralded; there was no one left to write the eulogy, create the book or plan the screenplay.
The word and the world ended.
The philistines smiled.
The playwrights didn’t mourn the poets – those twisters of words – but untold conversations soon spun their brains into frenzy. They talked, shouted, argued and made up with their own egos. They wandered, muttering, taking their final bows. Their sense of drama decreed that suicide would be their most fitting finale.
The philistines laughed.
The novelists sneered. Playwrights were melodramatic fools. But then they wondered, in this new world, who would print their novels? Who would read them? Had they ever been good? Was the purge justified by their inadequacy as artists? Paranoia bred despair, despair denied them sustenance, malnutrition brought their demise.
The philistines rejoiced.
The journalists recorded the events with glee. For so long the bastard children of the true artists, now they were the only surviving wordsmiths. Yet they were still looked upon with disgust – even as they revelled in the success of their masters. They took solace in alcohol. Their words became as drunk as their minds and soon both dried up.
The world’s readers, with no means of escape from their own stories, became an unproductive, uncaring, unfeeling mass.
The philistines’ success went unheralded; there was no one left to write the eulogy, create the book or plan the screenplay.
The word and the world ended.
About the Author
Karen Jones is from Glasgow. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is addicted to short story competitions and has been successful in Mslexia, Flash 500, Spilling Ink, The New Writer, Writers Forum and Words With Jam. She is also addicted to zumba and yoga, which are far healthier and stress-free.
Karen’s short story collection, The Upside-Down Jesus and other stories, is available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Upside-Down-Jesus-other-stories/dp/1291771557
Karen’s short story collection, The Upside-Down Jesus and other stories, is available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Upside-Down-Jesus-other-stories/dp/1291771557