Word

They were as thick and continuous as beads on a string, showered him like a streaming cascade, accompanied him wherever he went. From them he derived his sense of self. All significance grew out of them. He built castles to justify them, let and lost blood in their name. He pasted them, fated labels, on all the objects of his world, the ten thousand things that he got to touch and turn in his hand, like polished marbles. He thought the world really was his thoughts about the world. He lived in a prison of words, erected by his hurts and losses. When he tried to touch the world, the words yanked on the leash that held him. Only with another set of words could he fashion the means of his liberation. So he crawled under the tables in the darkness to find the ones he had lost. Those were scattered in a far corner of his imagination, and would only show themselves if he began to remember, remember the way he had lost, his grip on the reason he was here.